Dodgeball: No longer just a game for school gyms

NEW YORK - Professional dodgeball is organized chaos.

At the Dodgeball World Cup on the weekend, players were dipping, diving, ducking and, well, dodging all over the two-court theater at Madison Square Garden.

While that part of the matches might have look scrambled, the rest did not.

Each attack was thought out, strategically planned around players' strengths and weaknesses. Balls didn't just fly randomly - they were aimed with purpose.

"It's not the same game that most people remember from school," Team Canada's Katie Morrison said. "It's exciting to tell people that and to see their reactions that it's actually a competitive sport. It demands a level of athleticism when you're performing on the court - power, speed and agility."

The game has grown up. It's gotten rugged. Some players now get injured to a point where shed bleed.

All of this was on display at the World Dodgeball Association's second biennial tournament, where 13 different countries competed for the ultimate title in men's, women's and mixed competition, with 10 teams each.

Austria won the men's bracket. England won the women's and mixed.

The WDA was founded as dodgeball's world governing body in 2013, bringing together 35 countries from different continental federations. Since then, it has grown to 62 countries and WDA president Tom Hickson said there are more than 67.5 million participants worldwide.

"We've got quite a big growth agenda happening in the Middle East at the moment," Hickson said. "Within the next two to four years, we want to be aiming to deliver over 90 countries and over 100 million people worldwide."

That's the goal.

"I don't see it shrinking," Team USA president and player Ed Prentiss said. "It should keep growing."

Prentiss has been playing dodgeball seriously since 2003 when he founded the National Dodgeball League. The next year, the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story was released and interest spiked. Similar leagues started popping up everywhere.

Once established, it took the WDA 18 months to come up with a standardized set of rules that satisfied everyone.

"Our rules system is not necessarily designed for the grassroots activity," Hickson said. "It's more into that high-performance standard. It's making sure we get the best out of our athletes and get the best out of the sport."

The basics are the same: Get hit or get caught, get out.

A game is played with five balls - cloth, not rubber - with six players per team. There are two 15-minute halves with an indeterminate number of sets. The last team standing at the end of a set, or with the most remaining players, gets points. Then the balls are reset and action begins again. It repeats until time runs out.

Members of the dodgeball community are proud of the fact they play a very inclusive sport.

"I'm a little guy, smallest guy out there," Prentiss said. "I love it because I can dodge and catch. Some people love it because they're throwers. Some people love it because they're the total package.

"It just depends, but you see all body shapes and sizes out there."

AP