all things cbl

So today Matt and I went to the college pool to play our usual weekly game of Torpedo. This mornings game started at 9:00AM. Well, about 9:20am after we had enough for a 3 or 4 member team. Wow. What the fun. Swimming around in the deep end all day throwing around a little plastic torpedo.

Anyway, the game consists of two teams. The rules are similar to Ultimate Frisbee, except with a Torpedo instead of a Frisbee and Water instead of Grass. One can throw the torpedo, but only under water (except to start off a round, which is done overhead). One can not move forward or back, or side to side (much) when he has posession of the torpedo. He can, however, move up and down in the deep end of the pool looking for openings to throw. If the torpedo hits the ground it is the other teams posession and they pick up where the torpedo settled. The goal is to pass the torpedo to your team-mates in order to reach the other side. Pretty easy, eh? Well You’d be surprised.

Today’s event went from about 9:20am to around 12:55pm. Over 3.5 hours of torpedo… WOW! My face looks a little red, as does my back. It’s funny because the front of my body is white, while the back is getting a tan. I need to lay out…

ANYWAY.. It was a fun time. I have heard that it’s a quiet sport for those observing out-of-water. All you see is people coming up for air, heads bobbing up and down.. as most of the game is done under-water. The only time one really hears any talking, ranting, cussing (ok, none of that had here), is after one scores.

The funnest is to wait out behind the offensive until someone from your team steals the torpedo. Then they can launch a long-bomb to you .. if it has enough steam you can swim along side the torpedo and eventually get more distance out of it.. sometimes, however, this results in problems as the torpedo might outrun you. Anyway, I found out a new trick that one can do with these long-bombs, is moving your hand quickly under the traveling torpedo and it’ll get some more lift as well as velocity… useful for the time that you’re “almost at the edge”, but not quite…

OK..OK.. So this is our second year playing this sport. Principally it was developed by the Hansen’s in their pool.. I came along soon after, then Mark, Joey and the rest of the Veterans.. However, playing in the Hansen’s pool with the shallow edge is not quite as fun as playing in a deep end of a large pool. Hence, the reason for moving to the college pool. We’ve also played two times or so at the SHAC. I, in particular, didn’t like playing there for some reason.

That’s it! That’s ultimate torpedo in a nutshell. Hopefully it’ll become an olympic sport some-day.. Who knows. It just might.

I think I’ll register “ultimatetorpedo.com” just in case right now.

Wow!