Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.
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Description
Wheelchair rugby is a team sport for athletes with a disability. Developed in Canada in the late 1970s, it is played in more than 20 countries and is a Paralympic sport.
The sport's original name was murderball; in the United States, it is referred to as quad rugby. All wheelchair rugby players are quadriplegic, with a disability affecting both upper and lower limbs.
Wheelchair rugby rules include elements of wheelchair basketball, ice hockey and handball. It is a contact sport, and physical contact among wheelchairs is an integral part of the game.
Equipment
Wheelchair rugby is played in a manual wheelchair. Many players use custom-made sports wheelchairs that are designed for wheelchair rugby. Key features include a front bumper, designed to help strike and hold opposing wheelchairs, and wings, which are positioned in front of the main wheels to make the wheelchair more difficult to stop and hold. All wheelchairs must be equipped with spoke protectors to prevent damage to the wheels and an anti- tipping device at the back.
The wheelchair rugby ball is identical in size and shape to a regulation volleyball.
Players use a variety of other personal equipment, such as gloves and applied adhesives to assist with ball handling, and various forms of strapping to help them maintain a good seat position.
Classification
To be eligible to play, wheelchair rugby athletes must have some form of disability with a loss of function in both upper and lower limbs. The majority of the players have spinal cord injuries at the level of their cervical vertebrae. Other eligible players have multiple amputations, polio or neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy, some forms of muscular dystrophy or Guillain-Barre syndrome, among other medical conditions.
Players are classified according to their functional level and assigned a point value ranging from 0.5 (the lowest functional level) to 3.5 (the highest). The total classification value of all players on the court for a team at the same time cannot exceed eight points.
Rules
Four players from each team may be on the court at the same time. Wheelchair rugby is played indoors on a hardwood court of the same dimensions as a regulation basketball court.
The goal line is the section of the end line within the key. Each end of the goal line is marked with a cone-shaped pylon. Players score by carrying the ball across the goal line.
Physical contact among wheelchairs is permitted and forms a major part of the game.
Wheelchair rugby games consist of eight-minute quarters.
Much like able-bodied rugby matches, highly competitive wheelchair rugby games are fluid and fast -moving, with possession switching back and forth between the teams.
Did you know?
AC/DC's "Hells Bells" is still ringing off the walls of the gymnasium when C.J. Arinwine, a former Marine and captain of the Sin City Skulls, gathers the volleyball into his lap and begins circling the top of the key in his $5,000 heavily armored chariot, the one with its wheels tilted inward and what appear to be trash can lids protecting the spokes. The gymnasium lights are shining on his shaved head and call attention to huge beads of sweat on his brow, the kind that used to drip off Wilt Chamberlain's and Bill Russell's goatees when they locked arms jockeying for rebounding position.
In front of Arinwine, seven other athletes furiously work the wheels of their wheelchairs. Four Nova Scotia Spokebusters station themselves in the three-second lane on the basketball court, forming a blockade that would have impressed the Spartans at Athens during the Peloponnesian War.
The three Sin City Skulls not in possession of the ball are trying to blow those Spokebusters right out of the water. They attempt to do this by locking wheels with their opponents and rolling them out of the way. Or by smashing into them, which, as I will discover during the next two hours, is the preferred method.
The shot clock is winding down and the play looks to be going nowhere. Arinwine is still circling, like George Costanza trying to find a parking space, until No. 13, Eric Wolfe, gets up a big head of steam and slams into the rear of a Spokebuster . There is a crash of metal on metal. If you've ever seen a stock car race, it sounds like the Big One at Talladega.
Although I am not certain that Wolfe's rear-end pile driver is legal, it serves its purpose. Arinwine sees the opening and sneaks through on the high side, pivoting his chair just inside the pylon on the end line to cap this particular Skulls session with a point.
This is wild.
This is crazy.
This is murderball.
Technically, the game is called quad rugby or wheelchair rugby, at least in the United States. But after wincing through a match from the bleachers, you understand why the Canadians who invented it called it murderball. At times - like when the clock is running - that seems to be the object of the game.
"This is my outlet," Mike Schacherbauer, a former baseball player at Western High, told me after the Skulls' 42-29 victory in the third-place game of the Helter Skelter tournament at the Chuck Minker Sports Complex. It is the Skulls' highest finish yet against regional competition.
Once you get used to the sound of locomotives crashing in the still of night, it is easy to forget that these are handicapped athletes. It isn't until you shake their hands afterward, and discover most don't have a firm grip, that you lose yours on your emotions.
Sympathy?
Uh-uh.
Admiration is more like it.
"These are normal guys and that's how they want to be treated," said Brad Oram, the Skulls' coach , who walks instead of rolls to practice. "The only difference is you have to bend over to talk to them."
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