Just re-watched "Buckball Season", and I can't help but wonder...

[Hedonism Bot]

So, you have two earth ponies back-to-back, trying to kick the same ball.

Do you think they ever accidentally kick each other in the private parts?

Or "accidentally" kick each other in the private parts?

I've also noticed that a standard team has just one pony for each position, with no provision for substitutes. What do you suppose would happen if one of them were injured?

[Adiwan]

1. Contacts, as in the majority of ball sports, that disrupt the game (injury, very distracting...) is a foul.
2. Accidents happen.
3. "Accidents" happen as people are capable of lying to further their own needs.
4. Having no substitutes for the team is just poor planning and team management.
5. It's a children's show, so that sort of foul is not happening as every character has gone through the G.I. Joe / Ken (Barbie™) treatment with nothing being there.

[Fizzbuzz]

Do you think they ever accidentally kick each other in the private parts?

Or "accidentally" kick each other in the private parts?

This is gross to fixate on, please don't.

[Dong Strongly]

What if there was a human equivalent of buckball? Like the object of the game would be to kick a ball into a large basket of some sort, while someone guards the basket. I would call it kickball.

[Fizzbuzz]

What if there was a human equivalent of buckball? Like the object of the game would be to kick a ball into a large basket of some sort, while someone guards the basket. I would call it kickball.

I guarantee that if the sport had been introduced in seasons 1 or 2, the fandom would have codified rules and possibly organized play at conventions for a human version of it. I guess the "unicorn" on each team would have to run around with the goal instead of magicking it back and forth.

[Dong Strongly]

You could just make the basket stationary and at ground level

[Dong Strongly]

You would have to make it wider tho so there's a bit of a challenge for the "Pegasus"

[DaikatunaRevengeance]

i have not watched buckball season op

[Dong Strongly]

It's basically like the sport I described earlier, in which you kick a ball into a basket and someone guards the basket.

[Ragnar]

I guarantee that if the sport had been introduced in seasons 1 or 2, the fandom would have codified rules and possibly organized play at conventions for a human version of it. I guess the "unicorn" on each team would have to run around with the goal instead of magicking it back and forth.

As a little kid I remember seeing an ad in a magazine for some kind of kid's basketball variant where the two players each had a small plastic basketball hoop on their back, and there was one ball, and each player had to get the ball in the hoop. You ever see a game where you KNOW it's going to be violent as hell? Anyway, that's how unicorns would work.

[Dong Strongly]

I'm realizing now that a human kicking a ball doesn't make sense because we don't really have the same kind of strength and leverage that horses do. So, we can supplement our own strength with sticks and greater numbers, say, 6 people on each team. In addition, you would need a wide stationary basket on the ground because our "pegasus" can't fly. Finally, hitting an inflated ball is pretty difficult with a stick so you'd need the ball to be smaller and hard, most of the time it would be traveling on or at least low to the ground so the basket would have to be open at the bottom to allow the ball in.

The best playing field in our world to match the hard, slick, perfectly flat dirt and turf surfaces of equestria would probably be large fields of ice, in some sort of rounded rectangular shape, so there are no corners for the ball to get stuck in. And as long as our players are playing on ice, they should have to wear ice skates.

[Adiwan]

Have you received a soccer ball in the face that was kicked with full force?
I have.
I say people have enough force to kick a ball far and high enough.

[Dong Strongly]

It's not a good point of comparison until you get hit in the face by a soccer ball kicked by a horse tho.

[Dong Strongly]

Not saying anyone should, but I think my point stands

[Fizzbuzz]

This conversation reminded me of an old picture:

http://www.bronibooru.com/posts/89973?tags=owned

[Mr. Big]

Buckball nothing. What we need is 43-Man Squamish.

[Dong Strongly]

What about buckball except it's 11 people on a large rectangular field and one of them throws the ball with their hands and the basket is a large rectangular section at each end of the field? Sometimes they can "buck" the ball, like after they score or when they want to buck the ball into a large vertically oriented basket over the rectangular basket at the end of the zone.

[RIP Syndrome]

This is gross to fixate on, please don't.

actually it is hilarious, op and i had the biggest laugh when i finalle dared to open this accursed thread on teh pppp. brilliant work. a real masterstroke of a thread right here.

[Mechanical Ape]

Buckball nothing. What we need is 43-Man Squamish.

Dang, you beat me to it! I was a mere 4 days too late!

[Mr. Big]

Dang, you beat me to it! I was a mere 4 days too late!

I know my MAD Magazine lore, yo

[Dong Strongly]

How about a version where you play on a large quarter circle and you "buck" the ball, thrown by the "unicorn", with a long wooden stick to simulate a horse leg. In this case you would simply run to one or more of 4 "baskets" placed around the inside of the field after "bucking" the ball while multiple "Pegasi" positioned around the field try to catch the buckball

[Mechanical Ape]

Look I'm just here for the anabolic steroids, the rules don't really matter

[Madeline]

is this like cricket

[Fizzbuzz]

is this like cricket

For being a sport made up by and exclusively played by magical cartoon horses, it's far more comprehensible than cricket.

[Skipper]

Cricket isn't difficult at all, you just need to know the rules.

[Hedonism Bot]

One other thing I've noticed: One episode mentioned students at Celestia's school play defense using the butterfly wing spell that was cast on Rarity in "Sonic Rainboom". The thing is, that episode established that those wings are pretty delicate - a direct hit from a ball (quire likely considering that they're also much larger than pegasus wings) would likely have the pony in question come crashing down. Kind of a serious safety issue, you think?

[Adiwan]

They are only shown to react violently when exposed with too much sun radiation.
The mechanical properties aren't tested beyond being resistant enough to high amounts of air resistance (flying).

[Hedonism Bot]

Well, they also don't seem to offer the same performance as pegasus wings (though Rarity hadn't had much practice with them, so it's hard to draw a scientifically valid conclusion). Plus, hasn't it been said that earth ponies are physically stronger than others? Seems like that would put their team at a disadvantage.

[Ransom]

The School of Friendship lost to a team basically playing with a handicap, that had to be embarrassing.

No joke, everybody hates 2, 4, 6, Great because of how Dash acted but I was just:

School of Magic vs School of Friendship games!
Easily usable magic damping artifacts!
Spells being used to accommodate different types of ponies
Celestia is a sports fan!
Smolder obviously just joined to wear the cheerleader outfit

I suppose if it was Celestia who did the spell she could have added a degree of durability to it. They weren’t exactly flying high to begin with.

[Fizzbuzz]

One other thing I've noticed: One episode mentioned students at Celestia's school play defense using the butterfly wing spell that was cast on Rarity in "Sonic Rainboom". The thing is, that episode established that those wings are pretty delicate - a direct hit from a ball (quire likely considering that they're also much larger than pegasus wings) would likely have the pony in question come crashing down. Kind of a serious safety issue, you think?

Most likely so, but buckball had clearly been established as a very new sport on the national stage. If Equestria's sanctioning body for buckball is anything like our organized sports, it's likely they won't establish rules for player safety until after one (or likely more) of those players gets hurt.

[Hedonism Bot]

I suppose if it was Celestia who did the spell she could have added a degree of durability to it. They weren’t exactly flying high to begin with.

And I'm pretty sure they've always played by the laws of cartoon physics with respect to fall damage. Or maybe they have other spells that would prevent it.