Dot.comments

Yahoo Serious?

If you Yahoo , then you know that the Internet search engine provides an eclectic menu of sports sites on which to click. Yes, Yahoo sports include baseball, football and soccer. What, however, is Danball? Or Shinty? Isn't Sepak Takraw a best-selling author? Here-with, six of Yahoo 's most arcane sports are explained.

Danball: Created in 1992 by a pizza-snarfing gang of Midwesterners, Danball is a hybrid (as are most "new" sports) of ice hockey and football. There are three players per side. Think hockey rink in terms of offsides, but instead of goals there are end zones across which players push the "puck" (which is about the size of a volleyball) to score.

Korfball: Invented in 1902 by Dutch educator Nico Broekhuysen, Korfball resembles girls' six-on-six basketball. However, each squad is made up of four males and four females. The court is divided into halves, and two males and two females from each team stand in each half. Goals are scored through a basket 3.5 meters high. Scholars believe that Broekhuysen was inspired to invent the game while pulling an all-nighter preparing for a class on Mendelian genetics.

Netball: A close cousin to Korfball, seven-member teams try to score goals through a basket that does not have a backboard. Scottie Pippen would founder in this sport.

Sepak Takraw: Using a court and net the same size as badminton's, this popular Southeast Asian sport has three players per side. No rackets. No shuttlecocks. Instead, players strike a ball over the net using any body part except their hands. Hacky Sack meets volleyball.

Shinty: Most popular in the Highlands and islands of Scotland , Shinty is related to the Gaelic sport of hurling. There are no more than 12 and no fewer than eight players per side. They use wooden camans, which resemble field hockey sticks, to put a hard leather ball the size of a baseball over the goal line and under the 10-foot-high crossbar.

Tchoukball: This "sport" is more difficult to understand than it is to pronounce. Its Yahoo site lost us with the sentence, "Defenders crouch with hands on the ground, palms up and move around as a unit to cover the rebound."