From: robertson@delphi.intel.com
Date: Wed 25 Jun 1997 - 02:20:10 EEST
Alex Comments on
>Nick Brooke comments on "Iorgh!":
>> And I'd always assumed this owed more to Golfimbul than to Scotland.
>And where do you think that unscrupulous J.R.[R.] pinched Golfimbul
I sir, am no Lunie, and I am quite aware of Shinty. I am the wild-eyed hillman
>from! The real credit, though, goes to whichever inspired lunatic
>coined the phrase "Full contact golf", little imagining (one presumes)
>that there was such a game in the RW, never mind in Tolkien.
that coined the term Full-Contact Golf. Having played Shinty in its more
barbaric form (2 rules: if the ball hits the goal, it scores; and try not to
kill each other), I can attest to the full-contact part, and the balls & clubs
have some small resemblance to their modern conterparts. Being civilized
twentieth-century types, we didn't actually go for intentional strikes against
our opponents, but I did nearly get a broken jaw by blocking a hard shot with
my face. Scrapes, jammed fingers, and tripping were pretty standard, though.
There is at least one Shinty league in Scotland, I've caught games on ESPN or
ESPN2 here in the states. Rumor has it that when Scottish Shinty players and
Irish Hurley players get together, the Irish are allowed to pick up and carry
the ball (as they are in Hurley), but the ball counts as "in play" and the
Scots can still hit it with their clubs...
I actually wrote up shinty/shinney/camanachd for RQ on this digest quite a
while back, check the archives.
Unfortunately, there is no easy "Safe and Sane" way to play shinty at the
Cons, else I would run a game (like the Trollball championships).
Roderick Robertson
(Not Scottish, we descend from the Picts!)
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