Fort Collins – The wettest lacrosse game? The splashiest hockey battle? A chlorinated basketball showdown?
How about all of the above.
Kayak polo marries paddling with the explosive shooting of lacrosse, the violent checks of hockey and the breakaway maneuvering of basketball. The more than 20-year-old sport that blossomed in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and still thrives in Europe and New Zealand has only a core few in the U.S.
But American passion for play hasn’t ebbed. At last weekend’s Fort Collins- funded U.S. Kayak Polo Nationals at the city’s Edora Pool Ice Center, 22 five-player teams played 86 games in a showcase for the sport’s innate competitiveness.
The games begin with a red-rover start as each team furiously paddles their speedy polo-designed kayaks to the center of a 35-meter pool, colliding loudly in the battle for possession of the floating ball. Players dribble the ball by flicking it in the water next to their kayak as they paddle toward a hockey-sized goal suspended 6-plus feet above the water.
Downfield progression is often impeded with defending players riding their boats up on the hull of a ball-dribbling paddler and even shoving the paddler in hopes of a possession-losing upset. Even though the tackles and impassioned pursuit of the ball closely resemble the scrums of rugby or the board-side checks of hockey, boats and paddles are not allowed to contact the body.
In two 10-minute periods, paddlers can race the length of the pool more than a couple dozen times. Many players choose ball possession over oxygen when facing the decision to pass or prepare to roll themselves upright.
Strategy plays an important role, with players aligning to protect their goal, much like basketball players guard the center lane. Boats, specifically the tail end of the 9-foot crafts, work much like an NBA player’s elbows as paddlers jockey for position.
But unlike basketball, goalies hold their paddles in front of the hanging goal net and the crack of a blocked shot prompts a paddling frenzy for the rebound.
“You have to be good in a kayak. You have to be good with the ball. And you have to be good with a team,” said Sergey Finkelstein, whose California Club Canoe Polo (CCCP) aced Austin’s Aquabats in the final to win the national championship Sunday. “You have to be many things at once.”
Finkelstein first learned kayak polo in his native Latvia, where the sport prospered under Soviet support. Latvia’s once formidable slalom kayaking team often used kayak polo for cross-training, which fueled club-level and youth polo leagues.
In the U.S., whitewater and sea tour kayaking are the most dominant paddling sports, with slalom kayaking assuming a growing role. Kayak polo tends to be a secondary diversion for river and ocean paddlers. At last month’s world championship in Amsterdam, the U.S. men’s team finished last among 23 teams, the women’s team finished 17th among 20 teams and the juniors team was last among 15 teams.
In Colorado, the nearly decade- old Mountain Kayak Polo club is comprised of top-tier whitewater boaters, many of whom spend the summer paddling the most difficult stretches and tributaries of the Poudre River.
“Polo is a big wintertime thing around here,” said Marty Bell, the Kiwi founder of the Mountain Kayak Polo Club, which finished the national contest with a bronze medal. “Technically, we should have held the nationals a couple months ago before last month’s worlds, but that would have fallen right in the middle of our river-running season and I’m not sure anybody would show up.”
Learn more — For information on local kayak polo, go to www.kayakpolo.com/ftcollins
