If you were to play a word association game with Critic Te Ārohi, “sports” wouldn’t be the first word to come to mind. That’s besides the point, though. Our job is to represent the entire student population rather than reflecting the bits we personally relate to. Critters (what Critic staff have started calling ourselves) may be more proficient at sinking piss than sinking hoops, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t platform those who do.
Our interpretation of “sport” has admittedly been pretty loose at Critic over the years. The Sports Issue last year included a fictional interview with the Highlanders Zoo chicken mascot and a comprehensive handbook of beer pong rules compiled by yours truly. It felt a little off submitting that one under the ‘sports’ category in the end of year Student Press Awards.
For this year’s Sports Issue, recognising our own relative unsportyness, Critic stepped outside the bounds of our office-U-Bar-Link triangle and gave them a go. Sports can seem pretty intimidating from the outside, especially if you’re not naturally athletic or your only exposure was watching your rowing team high school peers run ragged by what appeared to be a cult. Our conclusion after sucking it up, digging out the gym gear, and giving it a shot? The Sport Folk are onto something. It’s almost like finding community through common interest and exercise is good for you.
We’ve got a mixed bag here: running, frisbee, wheelchair rugby, pool, foosball, chess, fencing, hockey, tennis, archery, and beer pong. Yeah, beer pong stayed. Here’s a list of other sports that we weren’t able to include but I’d like to give a special mention:
- Hobby horsing
- Ring-tossing
- Quidditch
- Underwater hockey
- LARPing
- Bumper cars
- Pacman
- Arm wrestling
- Paper airplane tossing
- Marbles
- Competitive puzzling
- Milk chugging
Anyway, welcome to the Sports Issue. Oh and the Critters wanted me to include that I played competitive canoe polo in high school which is apparently weird. Yes, I played a regional tournament in what was essentially a duck pond. Yes, one of our players got sick from swallowing duck shit water. And what?