Quodpot

[GoogleFont=Cormorant Unicase]

[PTabbedContent]

[PTab=OVERVIEW]

Quodpot is a Quidditch-variant, broom-based sport played primarily in North America. It’s the most popular, and most profitable, wizarding sport in America. The canon history and overview of the game basics can be found here.

[/PTab={tab-hover-background-color:#a96f81;tab-background-color:#ae2851;colour:#aed7e0;border: #ae2851 4px solid;}]

[PTab=PERSONNEL]

Each professional Quodpot team has a minimum of fifteen players and up to a maximum of thirty players on their roster. Up to eleven players, per team, may be on the field at a time. Substitutions may be made during natural pauses in gameplay (in-between Quods, specifically) or when a time-out is called.A minimum of four referees must be present for a match, with a minimum of two in-flight. An additional league representative, the equipment keeper, is also a required presence; this person is in charge of refilling the potion in the pots and beginning gameplay by firing the cannon that releases the Quod.

[/PTab={tab-hover-background-color:#ae2851;tab-background-color:#a96f81;colour:#ae2851;border: #ae2851 4px solid}]

[PTab=EQUIPMENT]

• The Quod: The sole ball in play, the Quod is charmed to explode at a varying moment between thirty seconds and three minutes after it has been fired from an cannon, unless it is doused in a particular potion, contained in the pot at the end of the field, at which point it is taken out of gameplay and another Quod is fired. It is impossible to predict, statistically or physically, when a Quod might explode.
  
  The explosion destroys the Quod completely: it becomes mostly pieces of leather and ashes. The player holding the Quod tends to be injured and, at the very least, covered with ash from the explosion. Injuries are usually minor in severity, but major injuries can result, especially when players fall off their brooms and fall to the ground after the explosion.
  
  The Quod is a modified Pennifold Quaffle, in that it is charmed to drop to the ground as a slower rate to allow players to more easily catch it once its falling. It also benefits from gripping charms that allow players to hold on to it without too much struggle (at least until it explodes).
  
  The Quod is typically a reddish-brown color, but once it contact with the potion, it turns a silvery color.
• The Cannon: A pneumatic cannon, set in the middle of the field, on the ground. It shoots the Quod up into the air at the start of gameplay. Only the equipment keeper and the referees may touch it.
• The Pots: The titular pots are suspended on poles at opposite ends of the field, containing the potion (uncreatively termed the Quodpot potion) that negates the explosive properties of the Quod. The equipment master periodically changes, empties, and refills the pot as necessary throughout the game. The pot does sway a bit from its pole, but it and the pole are generally stable, and players may not tamper with them, magically or physically. Often referred to as the goalpot, or the quodpot, or the cauldron, if you’re old-fashioned. Players are not allowed to fly past, to the other side, of the pot.

[/PTab={tab-hover-background-color:#a96f81;tab-background-color:#ae2851;colour:#ae2851;border: #ae2851 4px solid;border-left: #ae2851 4px solid}]

[PTab=FIELD]

The Field: The distance between the two goalpots is 110 meters (120 yards or 361 feet). A 15-meter radius semicircle around each pot is referred to as the key or the splash zone. The latter is an apt name; anyone in there when a goal is made will be splashed with the foul-smelling potion inside. While that semicircle is not visibly marked, it is charmed to dispel, rather forcefully, anyone who lingers within that 15-meter radius for more than ten seconds.

[/PTab={tab-hover-background-color:#ae2851;tab-background-color:#a96f81;colour:#ae2851;border: #ae2851 4px solid;border-left: #ae2851 4px solid}]

[PTab=GAMEPLAY]

At the beginning of gameplay, each team has eleven players, mounted on brooms but with feet on the ground, situated on the field on the opposite side of their designated goalpot. Upon the firing of the Quod from the cannon, players may leave the ground. Typically, each team has a designated Starter whose first job is to obtain the Quod before the other team and pass it to their teammates.

Players pass the Quod to one another, with the objective of eventually throwing it into their team’s designated goalpot to score a point. The team not in possession of the Quod attempts to steal the Quod from the other team, by intercepting passes or by causing another player to let go of it.

When the Quod explodes while in the possession of a player, that player must leave the playing field for the rest of the game. The player is not replaced; their team is now down one player (from eleven to ten, from ten to nine, and so forth), and in the event of an injured player or another situation requiring a substitution, that player may be not rotated back in. Possession is defined as any body part touching the Quod at the time of its explosion. It’s easy to identify if someone was close enough to be touching the Quod upon explosion, as they’re covered in ash, suffering from singed hair, and/or possibly bleeding.

Upon a goal being scored or a Quod exploding while in possession, players return to the ground to restart gameplay as mentioned above.

In professional matches, the match ends when one team has zero players left on the playing field; the winning team is the one with the most points when this occurs. (For high school games, the match ends upon the zero-player mark or when the gameplay total has reached three hours, whichever comes first.)

In most cases, weather does not merit a game delay or cancellation, as the Quod, pot, and Quodpot potion are charmed to resist the effects of the rain, hail, snow, and wind, but game and team officials may make an agreement to delay or cancel a game due to adverse conditions.

[/PTab={tab-hover-background-color:#a96f81;tab-background-color:#ae2851;colour:#ae2851;border: #ae2851 4px solid;border-left: #ae2851 4px solid}]

[PTab=POSITIONS]

• Starter: Often the fastest flyer with a good reach, the Starter for each team is in contention for the Quod when it is first released from the cannon. They typically catch and then pass it to an open teammate, but they do sometimes fly further with it themselves. After passing, the Starter falls back to another position.
• Jammers: Players in this position use their bodies and their brooms to disrupt the other team’s plays. These players’ strengths lean toward the intricate flying moves and violent crashing of brooms, in defense of the their own teammates and in attempts to force the other team to give up the Quod.
• Chasers: Chasers are the primary point scorers of the game. These players’ strengths will be catching, intercepting, carrying, passing, and good aim.
• Potguard (or Goaltender): Not every team chooses to play someone (or multiple someones) as a Potguard, but when playing against a team with a particularly strong offense, then this position can be key. The Potguard guards the pot the other team is attempting to score in, but they are careful to stay outside the 15-meter splash zone to avoid being forcibly thrown out of the way.

[/PTab={tab-hover-background-color:#ae2851;tab-background-color:#a96f81;colour:#ae2851;border: #ae2851 4px solid;border-left: #ae2851 4px solid}]

[PTab=STRATEGIES]

As Quodpot is a game of player attrition, the positions played and the team formations are fairly flexible, and players typically train to play a variety of positions, and can and do play a variety of positions during a single match. No player, no matter what position, is restricted from scoring a goal.

Depending on the strengths of the team, or counteracting the strengths of the opposing team, a team’s formation can be divided fairly evenly between jammers and chasers, or weighted toward one or the other.

[/PTab={tab-hover-background-color:#a96f81;tab-background-color:#ae2851;colour:#ae2851;border: #ae2851 4px solid;border-left: #ae2851 4px solid}]

[PTab=FOULS]

Quodpot is a more notoriously violent game than Quidditch. Even aside from the regular explosions, Quodpot has, for example, no equivalent rule against “blatching” or “skinning” (intentionally colliding with another player) or “blurting” (locking broom handles in order to disrupt another player’s flight). There are only a fraction of the number of fouls in Quodpot that there are in Quidditch, in fact, and most of them are there to ensure the safety of players. Here are a few of the major ones:

• No slugging: no direct use of hands, arms, feet, legs, or head to disrupt the flying of another player--so no grabbing or kicking of another player’s broom. Results in a foul shot.
• No juggling: no deliberately tossing the Quod off the body of another player. It’s dangerous, if they’re not looking and it explodes on them! Results in a foul shot.
• No slatching: no reaching into a pot or holding on to a pot to prevent the Quod of the other team from reaching the potion. Results in a foul shot.
• No going further than the goalpot. It’s out of bounds! There is a magical forcefield here (a continuation of the timed-forcefield around the splash zone), so this does not result in a foul shot, as the player/team is punished enough by being violently knocked back.

Use of magic on the field by a player is completely forbidden, and will result in the disqualification of the player and a foul shot to the other team. Undue belligerence (purposeful harassment of another player) can also result in disqualification of a player, at the discretion of the referees.

Foul shots are unopposed throws taken by a player from outside the splash zone, at a height no higher than five feet above the pot (though it can be taken much lower). Players get one point for making said shot. If it misses, the Quod is back in play.

[/PTab={tab-hover-background-color:#ae2851;tab-background-color:#a96f81;colour:#ae2851;border: #ae2851 4px solid;border-left: #ae2851 4px solid}]

[PTab=LEAGUES]

History of the AASM
The Associated American Schools of Magic (AASM) currently consists of the seven accredited American wizarding schools with high school (defined as grades 9-12) populations of at least 100 full-time students. The organization concerns itself with academic and extracurricular regulations for these schools, each sending a faculty representative to the association’s meetings, and ensures that each school adopts the highest of standards in their educational and related student practices. (Similarly, smaller schools have their own consortium, the Independent Wizarding Education Group [IWEG], and their own competitive Quodpot league.)

AASM League Structure
Members of the AASM compete in the AASM Quodpot League. While school teams may begin running official practices from the start of their school year, the regular season kicks off in October and ends in March, with the Varsity seeded championship playoffs (quarters, semis, finals) in April.

There are two divisions of Quodpot competition within the AASM: Varsity and Junior Varsity (JV). Some individual schools refer to their JV teams as Junior or Freshmen teams, but in general, Varsity is the highest-level team of a school, and the JV is the lower-level team of a school. Not all schools have JV teams. JV teams play Saturday morning matches, and the Varsity teams compete against one another in midday/afternoon Saturday matches. There are no JV championship playoffs, only the regular season.

AASM Student Athlete Eligibility Requirements
AASM student athletes must meet the league-wide eligibility requirements, though individual schools may set more stringent requirements for their own students. Basic eligibility requirements include full-time enrollment at the school the student is competing for, parental permission to play, signed record of a physical examination from a healer or Muggle doctor, and a grade point average of at least a 2.0. Students participating in a match must also attend all their classes in the twenty-four hours prior in order to play.

Differences between AASM and Professional Quodpot Matches
AASM gameplay deviates from professional Quodpot rules in time limit; in AASM matches, the game ends when one team has lost all eleven players or a total of three hours worth of gameplay has ensued, whichever happens first. Varsity teams may have up to fifteen players on their roster, and may draw upon their JV team for further players. The referee minimum for AASM matches is two. The presence of an equipment keeper and a mediwizard/healer is also required. The AASM certifies its own referees and equipment keepers (coaches from teams not competing, etc.)

Regulation AASM Quodpot Uniform
In official games, required uniform items include protective gloves, protective eye, arm, and shin gear, and the standard team jersey-robes and trousers. Yes, it’s a Must Wear Pants sport. Helmets and additional padded clothing are allowed but not required by the League, although some individual schools require their players wear helmets.

The Professional Quodpot League

Established in 1811, the Professional Quodpot League (PQL) is the highest-level of professional Quodpot. The league currently consists of eight teams. Their regular season runs from March to June, with playoffs and the league championship in July. Each team has a home stadium in a magically-secured location in or near their hometown.

• Arizona Thunderbirds. Hometown: Tombstone, Arizona. Team colors are light blue and light yellow.
• California Knarls. Hometown: Charming, California. Team colors are green and gold.
• Kansas Jobberknolls. Hometown: Jericho, Kansas. Team colors are blue and white.
• Maine Doxies. Hometown: Dark Haven, Maine. Team colors are purple and silver.
• Massachusetts Hidebehinds. Hometown: Greylock Grove, Massachusetts. Team colors are red and gold.
• South Carolina Dugbogs. Hometown: Goose Creek, South Carolina. Team colors are orange and brown.
• Texas Re'ems. Hometown: Techuacana. Team colors are red and blue.
• Wyoming Nogtails. Hometown: Devil's Tower, Wyoming. Team colors are black and silver.

Amateur players interested in playing for a professional team attend a two-week recruitment workshop in October. This workshop includes practice matches and camps run by both the league itself and individual teams. At the end of these two weeks, players receive offers from any interested teams and typically are asked to make a decision by November, before the team training camps in December and January.

Players do not receive offers from teams prior to this workshop period, but sometimes, teams do send invitations to this workshop to players they are potentially interested in recruiting. These invitations are not intended to be representative of any promise or contract.

Youth Quodpot

While there is no unifying national youth Quodpot organization, there are many regional Quodpot organizations for players aged 17 and younger. The most prominent of these is the Youth Quodpot Club of the Atlantic (YQCA), which each summer hosts a championship tournament, the Golden Quod Bowl (participants sometimes refer to it as the Super-Duper-Bowl), open to all North American youth Quodpot teams.

[/PTab={tab-hover-background-color:#a96f81;tab-background-color:#ae2851;colour:#ae2851;border: #ae2851 4px solid}]

[PTab=SOURCES]

The canon information about Quodpot, from Quidditch Across the Ages, was taken from the information provided by the Harry Potter Wiki. Quodpot gameplay is an amalagramish concoction of soccer, basketball, and Quidditch. The idea of a specified-range of explosion times for a Quod and the use of a cannon is from the fanfiction A Brief History of Quodpot.

Credit to coed@insanejournal who has originally posted this here.

Field image credit to quidchron.

American Quodpot League (AQL) was changed to Professional Quodpot League (PQL) and the teams stated there were created by Angie and Cindie .

PQL team logos created by Cindie .

[/PTab={tab-hover-background-color:#ae2851;tab-background-color:#a96f81;colour:#ae2851;border: #ae2851 4px solid}]

[/PTabbedContent={width:550px;color:#aed7e0;background-color:#222222;overflow: auto;border: #222222 0px solid;text-align: justify;font-family: Cormorant Unicase;font-size: 12pt;color: #aed7e0}]

RAZZ ♦ ADOXOGRAPHY