The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

Last night was our last broomball game. What is broomball, you ask? (You are asking, aren't you?) It's basically hockey, but without the skates. You run around the ice in sneakers, whacking a ball with a stick. I suppose originally it was a broom, but now it's a stick about lacrosse-stick length, with a small plastic head on the end. Teams are of 5 people plus a goalie, and the court is a hockey rink (which BU, being BU, has about 3 of...).

Anyway, running around on the ice is no easier than you'd think it would be. Well, I take that back. Running is pretty easy; it's stopping that's hard. As is gaining sufficient leverage to whack the ball with significant force. It's a tough game to play if you don't like getting up close and personal with the ice.

I've tended to be just such a person, and as a result I've tended to play very tentatively. But at our last game something clicked and I started playing like I knew what I was doing, taking off and running down the ice full-tilt, going after the ball aggressively... It made it a lot more fun. And somehow my balance had improved, and I hardly hit the ice at all.

The team I was playing on was an intramural team made up of law students - hence the team name, "Slip and Fall." I did find it interesting to read on Wikipedia that in ancient times the Icelanders used to play epic matches of a similar game that would usually lead to the death of several players. But because this was just an intramural game we were able to keep the torts to a minimum.