Why Broomball Rules
Everyone stinks, and everyone knows it
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What is it about broomball that makes it BU’s most popular intramural sport? “Nobody is very good at it,” says Scott Nalette, manager of intramural sports at BU. “Nobody has a chance to practice, so everyone plays at the same level, and everyone knows that.”
Broomball is a strange sport: one part ice hockey, one part curling, one part golf, and several thousand parts silliness. Players are expected to move rapidly on perfectly smooth ice, wearing rubber-soled shoes while hitting a ball into a net with a broom-like stick. To most spectators, the only thing that makes any sense is the object of the game: scoring more points than the opposing team. The rest appears to be confusion, adrenalin, and fun. A lot of fun, apparently, because this year, BU intramural broomball has 106 teams — none of them very good.