Elephant polo

And other alternative summer sports

Steve Bohrn Staff

Summer is fast approaching and more and more people are getting outside and enjoying the weather. While many enjoy the tried and true sports of summer — swimming, baseball, soccer, etc. — there are plenty of other options out there if none of the “usual” sports turn your crank.

In fact, there is a good variety of sports out there that you have probably never heard of, sports that really defy all reason and make you wonder what goes on in the minds of the people who actually play the sport.

Take, for example, elephant polo. This game was invented in Nepal, where elephants are abundant. But since it was invented in 1982, the game has spread to other countries in the region that have felt the need to ride an elephant while playing polo.

The sport obviously stems from the traditional game of polo, in which players ride horses and hit a ball with a mallet. In elephant polo, they ride elephants instead, and because a mallet would not reach the ground, they use the elephant’s trunk to advance the ball toward the opposing goal.

But that is not the only summer sport out there that might defy your North American expectations and cause you to scratch your head in wonderment. In many parts of the world, underwater hockey is gaining in popularity, to the point that it even has its own team at some universities in the United States.

Underwater hockey is basically hockey that is played at the bottom of a pool. The players use a stick to advance a lead “puck” toward the goal. They do all of this while wearing full snorkel gear.

To someone watching underwater hockey, or “octopush,” as it is called in Australia, it may seem more like synchronized swimming than hockey. But this is one of those sports where you actually have to play it to appreciate how difficult it is.

Another sport that is off the beaten trail is mountain unicycling. Sounds simple right? All you do is get on a unicycle and ride it up the mountain. Yeah, if that sounds easy to you, you are one of very few.

Mountain unicycling was created by a group in England who thought that regular mountain biking was not challenging enough for them. The line of thought must have been: “If it is this fun with two wheels, it must be twice as fun with only one.”

And as if that wasn’t enough unicycle fun, you can also round up a group of friends and play unicycle hockey. Just like regular hockey, you try to use your stick to push the puck into the net. The only stipulation? You are riding a unicycle while doing it.

And if all of these sports just aren’t extreme enough for you, there is always some good old fashioned BASE jumping. BASE stands for Building, Antenna, Span (bridge), and Earth, each being something that BASE-jumpers parachute off of. While it may be dangerous, the rush that it gives is simply unmatched.

So the bottom line is, if you are bored this summer, you probably aren’t trying hard enough. Go out and get creative with your unicycle, or parachute off of something. With all this to do, there is certainly no excuse for such boredom.