The ThunderBlogs

Thirty-six teams from cities across Canada and the United States jockeyed for positioning Saturday at the fourth annual East Van Crown hardcourt bike polo tournament.

It was the second of three days of festivities that began with Friday’s Dirty Threesome Co-Ed Tournament and continued with Saturday’s round-robin qualifying matches.

For the uninitiated, hardcourt bike polo is a minimalist, scrappy version of traditional mounted polo, with its horses traded for bicycles, and luxuriant grass fields ignored in favour of patches of pavement lined with makeshift boards.

Teams are comprised of three players, including a goaltender, and games are won by outscoring the opposition. This is done, ideally, without falling, touching ones feet to the ground, or ramming, hitting, or otherwise interfering with opposing players.

As Saturday’s matches developed, it became evident that these ideals are not always met, as competitor after competitor tumbled and crashed their way through the day.

Almost as captivating as the relentless action on the courts was the spectacle of the sport.

The riders were a motley bunch. With few exceptions, team members wore mismatched colours, rode varied styles of stripped-down mechanical steeds, and fashioned their homemade wheel guards and mallets from an array of different materials. It was Mad Max meets organized sport, and the only prevailing theme was discord.

That in mind, the tournament’s location is wholly appropriate. It is being held in East Vancouver’s New Brighton Park, a meandering stretch of green-space framed in industrial land, presided over by the neighbouring Viterra grain terminal, and assaulted by the sounds of industry.

Kiersten George, first runner-up in Friday’s friendly tournament and muddied from a hard spill, sucked at air heavy with grain dust as she recovered from her first qualifying match. Her team, the 2 0 Chicks (pronounced “two-oh-chicks”, in reference to the team’s Seattle area code, 206) had just suffered an unlucky late game defeat, but she remained optimistic. “Top ten would be amazing. Really what we want to do is be the best all-girl’s team out there,” she said.

The 2 0 Chicks and their 35 competitors are scheduled to return to New Brighton Sunday to compete in the elimination brackets and fight for the 2010 East Van Crown. The tournament final is expected to begin just prior to dusk.

For more information, see host organization East Van Bike Polo’s website at www.evbp.ca.