CONEAPULTING:
When coneapulting first came to be, it was an after soccer practice activity my best friend and I would play using the goal flags and cones over at Bandelier park. The year was about 2007. Since it was around 1914 when the traffic cone was first invented by Charles P. Rudabaker, we say that’s when coneapulting unofficially started: The birth of cones. We’d have competitive games, and that was where we developed a lot of the variations you’ll see later. But there were a couple of major problems. The first one was we’d play it at each other’s houses, and both of us had dirt backyards, which then limited us a bit, but we learned to work with it. Fun fact: today, official coneapulting games are played on dirt fields because of this! I didn’t have flags, and my friend's mom did but she didn’t want us to mess them up. Furthermore, the flags didn’t even work that well in terms of distance launching. So we needed something sturdy yet flexible and strong, and I happened to have a large quantity of it growing in my backyard: Bamboo. Our other problem still exists, but we’ve gotten a bit more careful over the years, so it’s not as prominent any more. Our cones would break, and break, and break upon break. And they still do! But it’s nothing a little (or a LOT) of duct tape can’t fix… Also, the great thing about using flags was that they didn’t hurt your hands, but bamboo did. In the early days, we’d come out of a game with hands splintered, blistered, scratched, and rubbed raw. Today, we’ve got official coneapulting gloves to prevent that, but then we made handle grips out of bubble wrap and duct tape, and patented them under the name of “G&E’s coneapulting comfort grips”. Another problem was the scratches, the scrapes, and the constant fear one of us would get our eyes gouged out. The poles were sharp, and we were only ten or eleven years old. Luckily, neither of us is any the worse for wear because of this, and now we’ve got face masks, arms guards, and various pads to protect coneapulters.
The rules of coneapulting, for those who care:
The rules of coneapulting are very similar to those of soccer. Traditionally played 5 v 5, our league will be 4 v 4. In 5 v 5, there is one keeper, who guards the goal with a baseball bat, 2 defensive players, who help guard the goal, and 2 offensive players, who try to score on the opposite goal. In our league, there is one keeper, 2 offensive players, and only one defensive player. The players launch the cone with their poles. They can pass the cone back and forth or run with the cone. They can knock the cone off other player’s poles, but if the cone is on the ground, they can only scoop it up with the poles, they can’t kick it. If someone kicks the cone, the other team gets a kick penalty shot on their goal, with only the keeper guarding it. The only other time a penalty is taken is if a player is fouled, or if they enter the keeper’s box. Fouls include:
Shoving another player
Elbowing
Knocking another player down
Kicking another player
Intentionally jabbing another player with their pole
Launching the cone directly at another player
Hitting another player with their pole.
No one can enter the keeper’s box except for the keeper. This is a box around the goal. Neither the defense nor the other team’s offense can enter it. If they do, the other team is awarded a penalty on their goal. All penalties are taken from the penalty line, a line two feet in front of the keeper’s box.
At the beginning of each game, there is a rock toss to see which direction each team is facing. The two team captains stand on either side of the center line, and the referee flips the rock. The home captain calls either bumpy or smooth. If the rock lands on the side they called, they get to pick which direction they want to go first, but the other team starts with the cone. If they don’t get the side they called, the other team gets to pick the direction but they get to start with the cone.
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