Whirlyball!

Mo's best friend Anna was in town for a quick stop in Chicago on her way to seeing family in Michigan so we rounded up some friends and played us some Whirlyball last night! This picture is not us. I found it online, but it's a pretty good indication of what we looked like. If you've never played, Whirlyball is sort of a combination of lacrosse, hockey and Jai-Alai played while riding an electrically powered mini bumper car. The Whirlyball bumper cars are quicker and more maneuverable than traditional bumper cars, too. You play in a basketball court-sized area in a 5 on 5 game, half of you in red cars and half in yellow. In one hand you have a Jai-Alai style plastic scoop and in the other hand a steering crank. The ball being tossed around is a wiffle ball. At each end the court there are vertically hung backboards with a 15 inch hole in the center. The goal is to get the ball through the hole. Behind the hole is a net mesh swing gate equipped with a buzzer & or lights to notify the referee when a score is made. And it's much harder than it looks.

We played 3 games lasting 20 minutes each, and it was a blast. We mixed the teams up each match, and the final game was the men vs. the women. The guys won handily, 3-0 with our third goal a thing of beauty. Garrett grabbed the loose ball at one end of the court and started the fast break. Garrett passed to Dan, Dan lofted a nice pass to Christian, Christian zipped the ball to me, and I "put the biscuit in the basket". If I do say so myself, it was poetry. John Wooden would have been proud.

After Whirlyball we grabbed some dinner and it was a really fun night with good friends. I can't wait to go back.

Big thanks to everyone who played last night: Mo, Anna, Annie, Emily, Garrett, Dan, Kristine and Christian.

- Corey