AI Olympic Broomball

Back by popular demand--straight from Minnesota to you--it's the second ever AI Olympic Broomball.

Vital Info:

Where: MIT Ice Rink
When: January 30, 9:30am to Noon
Please don't be late because we only have a small amount of ice time.

What on earth is broomball?

I like to think of it as hockey for people who don't skate and don't like to sweep the floor. It's very similar to hockey and is played in a hockey rink with hockey goals. The following are the fundamental changes:

Tennis shoes replace ice skates.
Brooms (yes, you can use the kind you sweep the floor with) replace hockey sticks.
A volleyball replaces the hockey puck.
Fun replaces skill.

Equipment

Required Equipment

A hockey helmet is required to play. I'm afraid that I have to insist on this point for your own skull integrity. Helmets will be available at the rink!
A broom. We will try to provide some broomball brooms. Broomball brooms have very sturdy shafts and the broom part is made of rubber. While they are not very useful for sweeping they can apparently be used to terminate rabid foxes. You are also encouraged to bring a sturdy broom from home. I don't recommend a plastic one since they usually break quickly but the old fashioned ones with a dense set of bristles wrapped in duct-tape can go a long way.

Optional but suggested equipment

Gloves. Any winter gloves or hockey gloves should be fine.
Shin, knee and elbow pads are all good to have to cushion your falls (which are often since ice is often a bit slick).
Hockey pants are also helpful for protecting your keister.
A hearty Canadian or Minnesotan accent

Forbidden equipment

Ice skates of any kind.
Any shoes with spikes or anything that might dig into the ice.
No broomball shoes. This sounds silly but they are a huge advantage that not everyone will have so wear tennis shoes like the rest of us.

Some Important Rules

There is absolutely no checking.
The stick cannot be raised above shoulder height.
You can use your hands to control the ball but you cannot hold onto or throw the ball to a teammate or into the goal.
You can use your feet to dribble and control the ball, as in soccer, but you cannot shoot or pass to a teammate with your feet.
Substitutions can occur at any time (including during the play) as long as the exiting player leaves the ice before the entering player.

AI Olympic Scoring

We will be playing without referees.
We will be playing with 6 players and a goalie.
We will be merging two olympic teams for each game so that all 4 teams can play at the same time.
The scoring will work as follows:
- 1 point for each player that takes a shot. A shot attempt, is defined as a ball struck in the vauge direction of the goal from within the offensive zone (i.e. inside the blue line). In otherwords if you touch the ball in the offensive end you are almost guaranteed to get a point. :)
- 3 points for each goal scored.
- The participation score is for your team only. The goal score is for the two Olympic teams that are playing together.
Your team's total score for the day is the sum of all of the above for each game.
Olympic points will be awarded as follows: 5 Olympic points to the team with the best composite score, 3 olympic points for 2nd place, 2 olympic points for 3rd place, and 1 olympic point for 4th place.