Welcome. I know many of you are here to better know Max Gavaskar, and here I’ve been rambling on about Harappa, a dead planet. Well, it’s where I grew up and it’s such an interesting story. I promise to give you some of the juicy stories of Max’s early life next week, but today I promised to tell you of the story of the last great Snowball game, so . . .
Some of you may not know what Snowball is. Rules for the game are a bit vague and to the uneducated spectator it looks more like a free-for-all. It is played on a large, snow covered field about 100 meters long and maybe 50 meters wide. At each end is a large round hoop, standing up and almost four meters high. The basic object of the game is to put an oblong leather ball through the hoop in any way possible, carried, thrown or kicked it doesn’t matter. Teams will usually assign two or three team members to guard the hoop. They would do this in any of several ways. Most teams take to building a wall of snow in front and defend this wall with a pile of snow balls prepared for the eventual assault on the goal. Of course opposing teams will assign somebody to be there attempting to tear down this wall.
The commotion of building up and tearing down the walls around the goal takes place at both ends of the field, while in the center the bulk of the teams are wrestling with the ball and each other. From the side lines it looks like a giant cloud of flying snow with an occasional arm or leg sticking out. Usually at some point one player will break from this mass and make a run for the goal. This goes on till one team scored three goals. This sometimes takes an hour.
There were eleven clans large enough to field a team. Players from the smaller clans were merged into other teams. The Thrans were favored again that year. Rex Thran was nearly unstoppable when he made a break for the hoop. This year the Sun family had high hopes of unseating the three time champions.
The game started with a quick toss to Fell Sun from his brother Dal, the Suns started the game with a goal barely seconds into the match. The ball was returned to play. The center pack wrestled with the ball till Goren Thran got hold of the ball and tossed out to Rex who took off like a spear towards the goal, trailing several Suns behind him. As he approached the hoop of the Suns he was battered by a volley of hard packed, wet, snow balls. Each ball that hit, stung Rex and reminded him that he would have a bruise for each one. Undeterred, he pressed on, shielding his face from the icy, stinging missiles. Because he was shielding his face he didn’t see Lagos Sun before his shoulder made contact with Rex’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to drop the ball. Dal Sun picked up the ball and drop kicked it as hard as he could towards the other end of the field, where Onus Sun caught it and from there threw the ball through the goal. Sun clan 2 Thrans 0.
Members of the Thran clan helped Rex to his wobbly feet. The Thrans put Rex on goal while he recovered and the game went on. The mash in center field continued for some time with neither team gaining an advantage till Strom Thran broke free of the pack and single handedly ran the ball through the Sun goal with a graceful diving leap.
The score was tied just moments later with a nifty pass from Goren Thran to Strom who tossed the ball to his cousin, Hammer who had come at the goal from the opposite side.
Again the game settled into a mid field tussle and stayed that way for some time. In the center of the melee hands groped for the ball as feet kicked at them and the ball. Biting, gouging, pulling, hitting, kicking all legal, all taking place. Finally, Dal Sun got free with the ball and made for the goal. Dal and Onus ran down the field parallel and tossed the ball back and forth to keep the Thrans from pouncing on one of them. About the time they were in range of the snow ball defense they were surprised when Rex Thran jumped from behind the Thran snow wall and intercepted one of their passes. Rex was at a full run when he grabbed the ball and scooted past all the Suns chasing the ball. No one on that field was fast enough to catch him. The Suns only chance was that their goal team could defend. Rex approached the goal straight on, not swerving at all through the fusillade of snow balls.
When Lagos Sun came over the wall to stop Rex, Rex swerved sharply to his left. The moment that Lagos moved to counter, Rex spun around and back to his right and past the big Sun goal tender. He then cut around the Sun wall and ran over Nate and Will Sun to score the winning goal. Thrans 3 Suns 2.
The crowd ran out on to the field and mobbed the winning team and the losers too. Almost everyone watching, thought this one of the best Snowball matches ever.
Monday: Childhood stories from Max Gavaskar’s life on Harappa
Philip Normer
of the White Mountain Clan of Harappa
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