Dodgeball Outside of the US

wdbf_logo2After my post yesterday describing how awesome it’d be if we could have a “Dodgeball World Cup” I figured I’d check out to see how dodgeball is played in other countries.

The United Kingdom is united under one dodgeball organization, the UK Dodgeball Association. It is clearly better organized than the US is comparatively. Their game is significantly different than the NCDA as well, with it being 6v6 games that are played as a “Best Of” style of match. The games are two minute timed, and their shot clock is based on who is winning the game at the time. There are also no head shots. They use yellow dodgeballs with the league logo on them, and they play on a much shorter court.

Here is a game between the Wales Dragons and the Northern Ireland Knights

They also have a university teams, a Premier League, and a National League. Essentially, it’s a pretty awesome setup. Similar to soccer, they have relegation and promotion.

Another game between Warwick University and Bedfordshire University in the University Cup Final:

cdbaCanada also plays some dodgeball, they’re hosting one of the two Dodgeball World Championships (for the World Dodgeball Federation that the US is in) and they also host a $20,000 Dodgeball World Series in Toronto. They’re not as organized as the UKDBA, but they’re trying! Check out dodgeballnation.ca for more info.

 

Europe is by far more organized than North America when it comes to having unified dodgeball. There are twelve playing nations in Europe, and they are having another European Championship in August that will be televised on Eurosport. Besides the UK teams involved, some of the other teams are from Sweden, Ireland, Italy, and France. There are men’s and women’s divisions as well.

Here is the Swedish Women’s team vs the Swiss Women’s team:

Hong Kong has some leagues as well, as well as some of the island Nations like the Philippines and Malaysia. They represent Asia, and Hong Kong is hosting one of the World Dodgeball Federation championships in 2014.

Here’s some video of Hong Kong Dodgeball

 

Author: hiller87

Former Captain of the MSU Club Dodgeball Team, former NCDA Chief of Content.

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