So with everyone’s favorite international competition, the World Baseball Classic, starting this weekend, and me watching the gamecast on my computer at work, I thought “How cool would it be if dodgeball had a World Cup!”
To me, a “World Dodgeball Classic” or a Federation of International Dodgeball Association (FIDA) or a “Dodgeball World Cup” seems very more likely than dodgeball being an Olympic Sport, and way more likely than it being a NCAA sport. For it to be a NCAA sport there would be so many hurdles you’d have to clear, whereas if you were to get different dodgeball organizations to join forces you could easily have a Dodgeball World Cup.
There are a few different countries who play dodgeball that I know of besides the US, including Great Britain, Italy, Canada, and Ireland in Europe, New Zealand in Oceania, and Hong Kong (not a country, but still) in Asia. The biggest problem is that there are many “World Championships” and people trying to organize things to be the dodgeball version of FIFA. For example, there are two “World Dodgeball Federation”s, one that includes the US and four other countries, another that is mostly all European countries. Obviously nothing’s going to get done if there’s two governing bodies with the same name. There is a “US Dodgeball Organization” but as far as I’m aware, it’s just one person running it and part of the selection process of making “Team USA” is helping him out. Their rules are very different from ours as well, not that I’m suggesting our rules are the only rules to play by, but the other World Dodgeball Federation doesn’t even have their rules posted on the website. If the two could merge, you’d have three continents of dodgeball players united under one ruleset and one big community. Or fellow NCDAers could just make a third World Dodgeball Federation just to mess with everyone. Either way.
If we could unite all the different countries, there are about 15 in all already, we could have one heck of a tournament. There are two World Championship tournaments this year (one for each World Dodgeball Federation!), one is in Canada and the other in the Philippines. One thing that NCDAers might not like is the fact that most leagues outside the NCDA don’t use rubber balls or allow gripping, and really the game is on a smaller scale (usually 6v6.) Obviously I’m biased when I say that dodgeball is way more exciting when people are throwing 70 mph (or in my case, 50) and there’s 30 people with 10 balls. However, if you look at the FIBA (the basketball version of FIFA) their rules have some differences than the rules used in the NBA or NCAA Basketball. That would mean that there could be international play and a rulebook adapted by the NCDA for our own league.
Obviously this would all take a lot of time. The costs involved with hosting a global tournament are huge, and each individual country would have to build their own federation. Dodgeball isn’t nearly big enough of a sport to have a huge World Cup like soccer or basketball or baseball. But I hope someday we get there, because I’d love to see the people who come after us, the next big stars of the NCDA, get a chance to compete on an international stage.
That’s it! Looks like I have something else I’ll dedicate my life to doing. There will be a real international tournament before I die. Either that, or I’ll be REALLY disappointed with myself.