I’ve lost interest in hockey and probably couldn’t even make the cut in the beer belly league now. Same with baseball. Never was big on soccer, tennis, bowling. I was terrible at football.
But there is one sport I am thinking of taking up and it’s one I think I might even be good at. That is the sport of shin-kicking and over the weekend, a Vancouver man was crowned world champion at the Cotswold Olimpicks in Chipping Camden, England.
I’ve always been good at kicking and am usually mad enough to want to hurt somebody’s shins. And here’s the clincher: I have been to Chipping Camden. If that isn’t a sign for me to take up this cool activity, I don’t know what is.
The sport is 400 years old. It involves kicking your opponent’s shins as you try to throw him to the ground. That must hurt, you say? Maybe, but participants do get to shove hay down the legs of their pants for protection.
Growing up on the farm, it seemed at haying time I always had hay in my pants. The sport was waiting for me.
I’m a bit disappointed the shin-kickers have gone soft over the past 200 years though. They used to cap the toes of their boots with metal but that is against the rules now.
Today’s shin-kickers might be wimps but with some practice, I think I could take ’em. Yes, wind me up and I would gladly kick the shin out of all of them.
©2014 Jim Hagarty
