Dodge Ball, la balle au prisonnier

J'ai regarde la semaine derniere un film epoustoufflant de scenario (euh...) pour legumiser mes neurones devant la television: Dodgeball. En francais dans le texte, c'est tout de suite moins glamour, ca se dit "Balle aux prisonniers".

Et la, j'ai appris qu'aux Etats-Unis, il existait depuis 1996 une federation internationale de Dodge Ball, et un championnat...

Si on m'avait dit ca quand j'etais petiote, je n'y aurais meme pas cru !

The International Dodge Ball Federation (IDBF) was founded by Rusty Walker of Gulfport, MS in 1996 and had a web presence in 1997. The Federation actually began as a way to make the children Rusty played dodge ball with feel as though the game was a real sport instead of a schoolyard pastime. Within weeks of putting up the website, emails from around the world began arriving daily asking where to play and expressing interest in becoming members of the IDBF. Within months the IDBF became a 'real' organization and began sanctioning tournament play around the world.

Around 1998, the IDBF formed rules and equipment committees to find better safer ways to play the sport. Hundreds of balls were examined and a ball was specified for play. The ball used for play is very light (about 7 oz), about 8 inches in diameter, has a butyl bladder, is inflated with very low pressure (2 lbs) and is covered with a fabric to avoid stinging.

The IDBF rules committee was tasked with taking the hundreds of different ways that people played the schoolyard game and boiling them down into a sport with a very concise set of rules that 1) was safe and 2) was quantifiable- (meaning it had to be able to be officiated with a high degree of accuracy). It was necessary to do that to re-introduce this 'revised' version of the game/sport back to schools and the public.

In 2003, the IDBF incorporated and hired a full time executive director tasked with league development. The IDBF has dodge ball federations in several countries and state organizations in about a third of all US states. Currently, the IDBF is well on it's way of having organizations in all 50 states by the end of 2005 and a projected 300,000 sanctioned players by the end of 2007.

Children make up the largest group of IDBF play but Adults aged 25-35 are the largest and hottest growth segment in 2004.

Also known by war ball, prison ball, or chain ball- dodge ball is played in some variation in almost every country. Japanese students play dodge ball almost daily at school.

The IDBF receives over 800 emails a day. Yes, we answer ALL of them.

The IDBF has most recently welcomed the new Pakistan Dodge Ball Federation as a member organization and is announcing this week the formation of and association with the new Australian Dodge Ball Federation as well as a Puerto Rico Organization.

The DodgeBall movie director looked at all kinds of dodge balls but settled on the old schoolyard red rubber ball because it seemed to be more 'violent'. The IDBF agrees it's more violent- we strictly forbid its use by member organizations.

The umpire in the movie DodgeBall was Al Kaplon, a retired major league baseball umpire. The IDBF has an official umpire training and sanctioning program.