Brady Terry
The high-scoring, high-intensity game is 3,000 years old and has roots in Ireland.
Despite its unfortunate name, the sport of hurling boasts a long and storied tradition that a small group of Madison-area athletes are striving to keep alive in the capitol city.
This ancient Irish field sport originated in Celtic culture and is thought to predate Christianity. It also happens to be high impact, high intensity and high scoring, as well as exceptionally social and inexpensive.
“If you ever played baseball, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, rugby, American football or hockey, you’ve probably developed a skill that is used in hurling,” says Bill Jones, a Madison-based lawyer who began hurling at age 38 and is still going strong at 46 as the oldest active member of the Hurling Club of Madison. “People have probably been practicing for this sport their whole lives and don’t even know it.”
But don’t think you can just go out and buy a wooden stick (known as a hurley) and a small cork-and-leather ball (called a sliotar) and become a hurling hero this weekend. First, the equipment isn’t easy to find and often must be imported from Ireland. Second, to the inexperienced spectator, hurling appears to be one of the most difficult and physically demanding sports ever invented.
With a history dating back more than 3,000 years, hurling has been called the world’s fastest field sport on grass and involves two teams of 15 players (13 in the United States), each using a hurley to hit the sliotar between the opponent’s goalposts. Points scored vary depending on whether the sliotar goes over the crossbar (1 point) or under it into a net guarded by a goalkeeper (3 points).
The sliotar can be struck in the air or on the ground, and it can also be caught and carried, but for no more than four steps. A player who wants to carry it for more than four steps has to bounce or balance the sliotar on the end of the hurley, and it can only be handled twice while in that particular player’s possession.
Players are always male, and they wear helmets but little else in the way of protective gear. (A female version of hurling, with similar rules, is called camogie.)
Still curious? The Hurling Club of Madison will host the Midwest Hurling Tournament on Sept. 19 at the Wisconsin Rugby Sports Club Complex, 4064 Vilas Road in Cottage Grove. There’s no charge, and free beer, burgers and brats will be available for all participants and fans.
Some of the region’s finest hurling teams, including those from Milwaukee and the Twin Cities, will compete, along with others from Chicago; the Fox River Valley; Naperville, Ill.; and possibly Akron, Ohio — tying the record for the greatest number of tournament participants.
The Hurling Club of Madison began in 2007 with four members. They included Jones, who met Jason and John Kenney while the brothers were hitting a sliotar with a hurley on the Capital Building’s lawn after the 2007 Madison St. Patrick’s Day Parade. A year later, the club hosted the first Midwest Hurling Tournament at Olbrich Park.
Today, a long list of club sponsors includes Brocach Irish Pub, the Coopers Tavern, Bristled Boar Saloon & Grill in Middleton, Tullamore Irish Whiskey and Babe’s.
Club members pay annual membership dues of $100 and practice Thursday nights at Madison Memorial High School, which is also where the club’s own teams play. The club participates in monthly tournaments and has stretched the sport into the winter months, with early Saturday morning sessions at Middleton’s Keva Sports Center.
Over the Labor Day weekend, a team from the Hurling Club of Madison won the North American “Junior C” title at the North American County Board Championships at Chicago Gaelic Park in Oak Forest, Ill. The NACB is the organization that oversees the Gaelic Games in the United States.
Although hurling remains huge in Ireland — Jones recently visited the country and calls the sport as ubiquitous there as Little League in the United States — it’s still evolving here. The men who play the game, though, can’t seem to stop.
“I love the game for a few reasons,” says Heath Moore, 45, a former president of the Hurling Club of Madison. “The physicality would be first. Second would be that it is more serious than a beer league of some sort, with our club competing regionally and nationally. Staying competitive is a great motivator for keeping fit — and it’s certainly more fun than running on a treadmill at the gym.”
“This is not a Thursday night softball league,” adds Jones, who’s already been there, done that. “There’s really nothing common about hurling in America. But nearly everybody who tries it is hooked.”
