10 Sports You’ve Never Heard Of But Are Actually Really Cool
Most sports are universal. There’s a version of most sports in every country. Everyone knows what soccer (football) is, and most countries know what hockey, baseball, and basketball are. American football is a little less known, but other countries have their own version of it anywhere.
There are some sports out there, though, that you’ve never heard of before. Those are pretty interesting sports, though, so I hope you learn something from reading this.
1. Curling
Curling is an amazing sport. It’s in the winter Olympics, which is when I first discovered it. Curling was created in medieval Scotland, so it’s been around for a long time. The first time it was in the Olympics, though, was the 1924 Winter Olympics.
It is played with a team of four players. It’s played on a sheet of ice, with a broom, a stone or rock, and a pair of specialized shoes. One shoe has a sliding pad on it that allows you to slide along the ice, and the other shoe is just an ordinary shoe. There is a target at one end of the ice and both teams have to get their stones as close to the center of the target as possible.
2. Hurling
I discovered hurling when it was played at Fenway Park a few years ago. It’s a really cool sport that looks like a cross between lacrosse and American football. There is both a male version, hurling, and a female version, camogie, but it is not a coed sport.
The sport is played on a football field, with an upright goal post, but there is a net attached to the uprights. There are fifteen players on each side, including the goalie. Very little equipment is required for this game. The only padding is a helmet and shin guards, which are optional. The hurley is the stick, which looks a little like a field hockey stick, and the sliotar, which is the ball used.
3. Snowkiting
This is also known as kite skiing. It started in Germany when Dieter Strasilla glided around a snowy plain in the early 1960s. Parachute skiing was what started kite skiing, then they switched to kites to make snowkiting. It is very popular in central Europe and around the Alps.
Snowkiting can be used while going up slopes, down slopes, and in flat areas as long as there is enough wind. Frozen lakes and ponds are very common for kite skiing, as well. When snowkiting was first created, it was used as a way to get from one side of the lake to the other. Now it’s used more for fun than for transportation, but it’s also a competitive sport, too.
4. Kabaddi
Kabaddi is one of those sports you’ve never heard of before. This is the national sport of Bangladesh, and it was first started in ancient India. It is a contact sport played with two teams of seven players each. There is no equipment needed to play this sport because it is a fighting-based sport, where the two teams push each other.
The offense, or the raider, has to run from one side of the court to the other, without help from their teammates. The raider’s job is to tag as many of the defenders as they can and run back to their side of the court without getting tackled by the defenders. There is a world cup for kabaddi, it also was an Olympic sport for one year, and it’s part of the Asian Games.
5. Octopush
Octopush is one of those sports you’ve never heard of before. This is also known as underwater hockey. It was started in Southsea, England in 1954. Two teams compete to put the puck, which is made of lead, into the other team’s net. It is not a huge contact sport, but it does have enough contact that it is considered a contact sport.
The game was invented to keep the interest of deep-sea divers during the cold winter months in England. It is played very similarly to ice hockey. There is a puck and a stick they use to put the puck on the net. Players use a swim cap, fins, and a snorkel to stay under the water for an extended period of time. It sounds like a very cool sport to play.
6. Bossaball
Bossaball is one of those sports you’ve never heard of before. This is a team sport that started in Spain but was conceptualized by a Belgian athlete in 2005. It combines volleyball, soccer, and gymnastics with music to make a sport. It is played on an inflatable court with trampolines on both ends of the court.
There are four players on each team, with an attacker on the trampoline and the other three players on the inflatables. The object is to hit or kick the ball back and forth over the net, trying to get it to land in an empty spot on the course. No part of your body can touch the net at any time, which is different than volleyball, and you can use your feet, which is unlike volleyball.
7. Footgolf
Footgolf is one of those sports you’ve never heard of before. This is a good sport for anyone who loves golf but has really bad hand-eye coordination. It follows all the rules of golf, but it uses a soccer ball instead. It can be played on an eighteen-hole golf course or a nine-hole golf course. The hole is big enough for a soccer ball.
This game is based on an early twentieth-century American game called codeball. It follows the same rules, but footgolf is much more popular. Footgolf officially became a sport in the Netherlands in 2008, so it is a fairly recent sport. The object is to kick the ball into the hole with as few kicks as possible. It is a single-player sport, but some countries have courses for teams.
8. Loopyball
Loopyball is one of those sports you’ve never heard of before. This game started in Germany fairly recently. It is also known as bubble soccer in the United States. The bubbles come in all different colors but only one size. There are straps on the inside that keep the ball from falling down your body. Only your feet are showing usually.
The game started out as just a way to bump into each other and push each other without hurting each other. But then it became a way to play soccer. There are five players and a goalie on each team. Half of the bubble ball is clear and the other half is colored. It follows the rules of soccer, only you can push people down and not get penalized, so it’s more fun that way.
9. Fierljeppen
Fierljeppen is definitely one of those sports you’ve never heard of before. This is a weird version of hybrid pole vaulting. It started in the Netherlands a long time ago. A lot of the Netherlands is below sea level, so this was a way for the people to get from one side of the canals and waterways to the other side.
It became a game when people started competing against each other to see who could go farther. It is a lot different than pole vaulting we know now. The pole sticks straight up in the water and the participants run toward the pole. They climb up the pole, as high as they can go before it starts tipping where they want it to go. Scores are determined by how high they can climb the pole.
10. Mallakhamb
Mallakhamb is one of those sports you’ve never heard of before. This is an ancient Indian sport, mostly in the Mumbai area. It is really weird to watch, but that just makes the sport more interesting to look at. It is kind of like gymnastics but it’s on a really tall pole. The whole point is to balance on the pole while doing cool things.
It is all about flexibility, strength, and balance while doing the moves of Western gymnastics. It’s a little confusing because there can be multiple people on the pole at once, or there is only one person on the pole. The sport comes from ancient Indian mythology and other ancient fighting traditions. It is only popular in one small area of India, though, so it’s not that popular.
