Bocce: the sport where ‘wining’ is required

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/10/2009 (6038 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You can wring your hands all you want about H1N1, because I personally have come down with something far more serious — I am burning with Bocce Fever.

I caught it Tuesday night when, in an upset so stunning that everyone who witnessed it was totally stunned — my bocce team won its first-ever playoff game.

Is that exciting sports-related news, or what? I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: “Huh???” Well, I don’t blame you. Unless you happen to be a middle-aged Italian man who enjoys hanging around in bars, you probably have never heard of bocce before.

Here’s a little history: Bocce is a sport that was invented by the ancient Egyptians, who used to play with polished rocks. It was taken over by the Italians, who wisely opted for wheels of cheese instead of rocks. You can look this stuff up.

Eventually, someone came up with the genius idea of using grapefruit-sized balls made of rubber and resin and — voila! — the modern game, roughly pronounced “BOW-chay,” was born.

The way it works is two teams of four players roll balls called “boccia” down a narrow grass court known as the “campo.” The object is to get your balls closer than your opponents’ balls to another little white ball called the “pallino.” You play three games to 11 points, then everyone heads back into the bar for more wine.

And that’s the main point about bocce. I am pretty sure it is illegal to play the game unless you are within stumbling distance of a bar. The game itself is very much like curling, except there is a lot more drinking involved.

For the uninitiated, it is extremely difficult to tell active bocce players apart from people who are (a) just standing around casually drinking wine; or (b) lying motionless on the ground for no apparent reason.

As it turns out, I am pretty good at this game, which combines the thrills and spills of lawn darts with the high drama of watching televised poker.

I’m not saying you don’t have to be in great shape to play bocce… no, wait, that’s exactly what I’m saying. It really doesn’t matter what shape you are in. If you currently have a pulse, you have an excellent shot at being one of the best bocce players in the country.

The most strenuous part of the sport is crouching down in the accepted bowling stance, then flinging your balls wildly down the court. Even the North American Aerospace Defence Command has a hard time tracking balls thrown by members of my team.

We tend to throw with the accuracy of North Korean missiles, by which I mean at any given time it is entirely possible one of our balls will slam into the Sea of Japan.

We are not, technically, a good team in the sense that we rarely win a game.

There are roughly 24 teams in our league, all of them with incredibly stupid names.

For example, the team we beat in the first round of the playoffs — every team gets into the playoffs; it’s very democratic — was named after an Italian salad.

My team is officially named “Freep,” because the players are somehow connected with this newspaper. But we like to think of ourselves as the “No-show Joes,” because our star player is Joe Grande, the owner of Mona Lisa Ristorante, which is where we play all of our games.

When he is there, Joe is the Wayne Gretzky of bocce ball. The problem is that Joe has a God-given ability to forget to show up on the nights we play.

He is also colour blind, so we have to point at the balls we want him to hit, but he is so talented he could easily toss a bocce ball from behind his bar and, wherever you’re sitting at the moment, hit you with it.

But the best thing about bocce is that it is a fun, recreational activity in which people of all genders and ages can get together and, over a glass of wine, enjoy a friendly rivalry.

And if you believe that, you are what is known in bocce circles as “an idiot.”

We are all deadly serious about winning. For example, when the referee (always an older Italian-Canadian gentleman) pulls out his tape measure to determine whether the green ball or the red ball is closer to the white ball, both teams hover over him, staring down with the kind of intensity they display when examining dead bodies on an episode of CSI.

My wife insists that when I am in the process of rolling the ball, I screw my facial features up into a pained expression she calls my “bocce face.”

Me: “You mean I look like a fierce competitor?”

My wife: “No, you look like you haven’t gone to the bathroom in six years!”

The point is, bocce fever is definitely contagious. You may not be a natural like me, but I still think you should give it a try.

I’ll even hold your wine for you.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca