Temperature: -1 to 1 C, 30 to 34 F
Most of the game was spent in a heavy mist that soaked through the players clothing and turned into a blinding fog as the moon came out, in spite of the overhead lights that permitted limited visibility during the match. With temperatures dipping below freezing, this was not a comfortable game.
details
This is the 'skeleton' of today's match. All quidditch players and spectators may comment in the appropriate sections in the comments. Volunteer spots are meant to be included in comments, and will be edited into the post later.
Quidditch commentary was provided by the wireless club, specifically Evadne Gamp of Ravenclaw (the only non-invested member without a German accent), whose lack of understanding about the game became apparent about ten minutes in. Her commentary will be mostly in the comments, since they'll likely be confusing as hell.
Today's much anticipated quidditch match was fraught with weather related difficulties. With constant mist, and later fog, and temperatures hovering around freezing, both quidditch teams had to struggle to both keep themselves warm and to keep their frozen limbs cooperative so that they didn't fall off their brooms. Towards the end of the night, limited visibility resulted in increased collisions, and the players' hunger resulted in some very frayed tempers.
"And the whistle has been blown! Welcome to the game everyone and -- oh, I think someone has the ball. The quaffle. Excuse me. Yellow -- Hufflepuff has the quaffle and they're, um, flying it down towards the other side's hoops, protected by Mr Douglas McKinnon. Oh, another whistle. I think -- I think someone has done something he isn't supposed to. Perhaps he was... oh well, they've started again, and now Gryffindor has the ball..."
Already chilled half an hour in, the quaffle managed to slip from the hands of Chaser Nigel Bones before he'd made it halfway across the field, smacking Ernest in the head. He was forced to zoom quickly down for his dislodged glasses and Glynnis, thinking he'd seen the snitch, raced forward with surprising speed on her new broom. It was somewhere near the bottom of the pitch that she saw the actual snitch and zoomed off, but the snitch disappeared into the mist and wasn't seen for several hours, leaving the seekers to wander the field and stay out of the way of the bludgers (and Scotty to stick his glasses more permanently to his face). This was only the beginning of bizarre, weather related occurrences, and the number of fouls called this game were significantly lower, as it was difficult to tell which things were accidental and which weren't (and Professor Gamp didn't want to admit he was having trouble seeing in the later fog).
Scoring was fairly steady throughout the first half of the game, with a number of saves and goals on both sides. Keeper Darren O'Hare seemed to have an improved control over his old broom from last game, and managed to turn one of his broom's hissy fits to his advantage when it bucked him clean off; he caught an incoming quaffle as he fell -- and before the coach could buffer his fall, caught a bludger as well. Game-play had to be paused for nearly ten minutes as they dug Darren, the quaffle, and the bludger out of the mud, but he managed to limp back onto his broom and continue play.
Darren wasn't the only one who had some difficulty with his broom -- Glynnis, who'd received a shiny new broom from Tiberius, definitely improved her speed across the pitch, but this turned against her mid-match when she sped across the field in sight of the snitch, misjudged her speed, and slammed right into one of Rufus's bludgers, which was aimed for an opposing team member. It was only because she'd worked so hard in her practises to get ready for fouls that she ended up able to get back on her broom, ignoring the serious pain in her ankle and pressing on. With the cold, Rufus and Moody also had broom mishaps, and at various points in the game, nearly fell off the ends of their slippery, frozen brooms because of the impact of the bludgers against their bats. For a few minutes, it looked like Rufus wasn't going to be able to stay on, but he managed to get it back under him and continue on -- just as a chaser from another team smashed into him.
One of the few people who seemed unfazed by the weather was Hamish MacFarlan, whose practises have focused around precisely these sort of conditions; managing to compensate for the weather, he scored the first five goals for Hufflepuff team -- though his excitement lead to him scoring twice after fouls were called. His play fluctuated between controlled and overcompensating, and once he actually sent the quaffle over the hoops and well into the crowd before a penalty was called.
He, Kenneth, and the npc chaser worked well as a team, with Kenneth focusing on passing with his injury still bothering him, and the npc chaser doing a lot of feint work to keep the ball moving and the other team confused. Kenneth's flying kept him mostly out of harm's way, and before dinner, he'd scored five goals.
On the other side, the Gryffindor chasers started out a bit rusty with the insertion of Agatha in the place of the suspended Gwen Morgan; nerves, adrenaline, and novelty played off of Agatha's anxiety and desire to do right by the team. A few dropped quaffles and misgauged passes were aggravated by Nigel's persistence in passing to Algie whenever he got the quaffle, and it was only after some screaming by Gwen, below, that he renewed his focus on getting the quaffle to Agatha as well. After a few attempts to try the new moves Gwen showed him, Nigel missed the hoops more times than he scored, and ultimately reverted to his typical manoeuvres. Given that his understanding of Gwen's instructions was limited, this was probably for the best. After several hours getting into the knack of playing together, the chasers ultimately smoothed out until they were operating fairly well.
Agatha focused on intercepting the quaffle, and made good use out of her seeking abilities to rob the other team of a few passes; her arm was not quite as honed as her fellow chasers, however, and a few of her own passes fell short -- still, but mid game, she Algie, and Nigel had managed to adapt to the realities of an actual game, and flew a little closer than they were used to. This flexibility proved to their advantage, as proximity made it easier for Nigel and Agatha to keep Algie's attention where it needed to be: the goal; despite a few fouls, they managed to stay on their brooms -- aside from some late game collisions, and of all the players, the Gryffindor chasers came out the least injured of anybody.
The beaters on both teams did quite well and kept fouls down to a minimum for the most part -- Moody and Rufus have played together, on and off the pitch, for a long time, and have been known for goofing around during matches -- today, they were all business, though they occasionally smacked each other with their bats when paused for penalties and the referee wasn't looking.
Angus and Rufus focused on the Gryffindor Keeper and Seeker, respectively, and with few exceptions kept it clean. With his attentions focused on the goal, Angus managed to assist in a few goals, keeping Doug dancing away from a bludger during half of his saves. Rufus, on the other hand, kept one eye on Scotty and the other on Glynnis, trying to work out when they were both going for the snitch and sending the bludger after Scotty -- his long distance aim is getting better, but there were a few times when Glynnis had to buck out of the way to keep from getting hammered. Only once did Scotty get hit with a bludger, and it was during an unfortunate clusterfuck that resulted in both bludgers bounding for the seekers, both hitting the ground, hitting each other, and then hitting both seekers. It would have been amazing had it been on purpose -- but both Seekers managed to pull themselves back up and get back to seeking before any advantages were recognised.
On the opposing team, Moody managed to impress everyone -- including himself -- when he successfully pulled off the Bludger Backbeat; after robbing Hamish of the chaser (which Moody didn't get to see since he turned too slowly), the bludger rebounded at him, and he only narrowly managed to avoid it by dangling from his broom. Maybe it was his mother's biscuits weighing him down, but it took him a very long thirty seconds to remount his broom. Still elated from his successful move, he managed to prevent two or three goals by going after Darren.
When dinner time rolled around, students were excused to return to the castle -- leading Moody to fly back towards the stands; he was almost out of the pitch when he realised that the team hadn't been excused, and went back looking a little dejected. The rest of the team(s) weren't happy, either, but kept going, bearing in mind the epic national game and assured that they (probably) wouldn't have to go multiple days without sleeping and eating properly.
During and after dinner, with the fog getting worse, things got considerably messier. Doug, who'd been doing an admirable job goalkeeping despite the stooging, was fouled twice -- the first more of a collision than a foul, which resulted in a Gryffindor penalty goal. The second time, however, a bludger-hoop disaster resulted in him getting caught in the central hoop with the bludger bouncing between him and the edge. With eight broken bones, he was hurried to the edge of the field, where Healer Smethwyck attended to him, and Brutus Scrimgeour was put in as a hasty replacement. His Keeping talents aren't quite on the same level as his beating skills, but he managed to save five goals in his brief Keeping stint.
Unfortunately for Kenneth Ellerby, and Mr NPC beater on the Gryffindor team, some collisions were significantly worse than others. At around 8pm, with the overhead lights bouncing off the fog in the worst ways imaginable, Ellerby took a faceful of Gryffindor beater, who, flying for a bludger, ran into him so hard they both crashed into and broke one of the pillars on the stand-boxes. Professors raced in from every angle to repair the box and extract the two boys, who were buried and unconscious in a pile of wood and injured spectators (volunteers; minor injuries, no recoup time); Kenneth, already dealing with a previous injury, had to sit out the rest of the game, replaced by Aoife Kelly, who looked both excited and terrified. Because one of the beaters on Gryffindor were now out, and there were no more reserve players available, Doug insisted he be let back in as keeper so that Brutus could go do his beating thing. This changed the tone of the game, somewhat, for what Brutus lacked in finesse, he made up for with a powerful, vicious aim. He'd had the beater's bat for about two minutes before he'd been whistled for a foul, and after some screams from Gwen, managed to keep things kosher for the rest of the game.
Aoife did a surprisingly good job for being thrust into the game at such short notice, but the Hufflepuffs were put at a bit of a disadvantage at having the substitution take place so late in the game; Hamish and the npc had to adjust their playing strategies after hours and hours of playing in the same sync. With the weather making it even harder to react well to broom shifts and quick manoeuvres, there were more dropped quaffles in hour 8 than there had been the rest of the game, but by hour 9, things had tightened up a bit. Hamish tried to give Aoife weather advice when they were paused for fouls, and it helped somewhat, though the npc chaser tended to favour Hamish too heavily with his passes, leading to some intercepts that otherwise wouldn't have occurred. Still, they stayed neck and neck, scorewise. It was a considerable feat that the teams could score at all, given the hoops weren't very visible in the fog.
Visibility problems made the game exceptionally difficult for the Seekers, who couldn't keep track of each other, much less the snitch. Both Scotty and Glynnis crashed several times due to poor depth perception, and by the end of the match, Glynnis had a broken wrist to go along with her ankle, and Scotty's glasses had been broken four times. Exhausted, both skirted the sides of the field, attempting to catch any flash of light that might be the snitch -- unfortunately, the metallic bludger tended to glint when caught the wrong way in the brilliant overheads, mixed with fog, and they both 'caught' a bludger a few more times than they'd like to admit. Beaten up, tired, half-blind, a scream went up from the crowd as the snitch extracted itself from the fog and rose above the entire game, flying clear and high. Glynnis saw it first, going after it with a surprising amount of speed -- and Scotty followed, intent upon his broom and with secret visions of taking off like a rocket ship from earth. He trailed Glynnis as the snitch jerked left and then down, plunging into the fog -- they collided, hard, and began to fall, hands still outstretched for the snitch. It was when Scotty decided to give it his all that things changed. Still falling, he careened sideways off his broom, curled up in a ball, and let physics drag him downward far more quickly than was safe. In a move that will amaze and terrify students for years to come, Scotty caught the snitch by literally crushing it beneath himself and into the ground, breaking about four major bones in the process. When he finally pulled the dejected looking snitch out from under him, he held it aloft in his bloody, broken hand, and then promptly passed out to visions of worlds with lower gravity.
Game was called at 10:15pm.
Final statistics:
Game time: 10 hours, 15 minutes
Gwendolyn Morgan: screamed really loudly from the field until she lost her voice
Nigel Bones: 8 goals (1 withdrawn because of fouls) Algernon Longbottom: 10 goals, 2 fouls Agatha Chubb: 6 goals, fouled once Alastor Moody: 2 fouls
[npc beater]: 1 foul Douglas McKinnon: 30 saves, fouled twice Brutus Scrimgeour: 5 saves, 1 foul Ernest Fenwick: one snitch, fouled twice
Kenneth Ellerby: 5 goals, 2 fouls, fouled once Hamish MacFarlan: 12 goals (2 withdrawn because of fouls), 1 foul
[npc chaser]: 4 goals, 1 foul Aoife Kelly: 5 goals Angus McLaggen: 1 foul, Rufus Scrimgeour: 2 fouls, fouled once Darren O'Hare: 44 saves, fouled once Glynnis Griffiths: fouled once