This Saturday, January 15, Buffalo’s own Ives Pond Quidditch team will be hosting the Ives Pond Invitational as part of Olmsted’s Flurrious Festival in Delaware Park.
The games will kick off at 11 a.m. and run until about 5 p.m. There will be six teams playing for the championship: Ives Pond, Suny Geneseo, RIT, St. Lawrence, University of Pittsburgh and City Honors High School. Games will be played according to the standard International Quidditch Association Rules.
“It’s awesome to host a tournament,” said James Maska of the Ives Pond team. “Newell Nussbaumer, Scott O’Connor, the festival organizers and the Olmsted Parks Conservancy have been incredibly supportive in order for us to pull this off. It’s also great to be a part of what is promising to be an incredible outdoor festival. Finally, Buffalo is taking advantage of its natural assets with Flurrious as well as the Powder Keg Festival. We are thrilled to be a part of it.”
Buffalo’s team, who is currently ranked number seven in the world, recently competed in the Quidditch World Cup in New York City. They made it to the quarterfinals where they were eliminated by the University of Pittsburgh. They hope that this weekend will be their chance to get some retribution.
Alex Benepe, the President of the International Quidditch Association, will be in attendance at the Ives Pond Invitational. Benepe was one of the individuals who encouraged the growth of the sport when he was a student at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2006, he took over as the Middlebury Quidditch Commissioner and founded the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association in 2007. He will also be filming a “State of the League” address this weekend to inform the IQA teams about what they can expect in the coming year.
“I have never been to Buffalo before and I’m really excited to attend
this festival,” said Benepe. “Quidditch in the snow is always fun, but I’m sure that a Buffalo winter festival will kick it up to a totally new level.”
For more info about the event, visit the Facebook page. To learn more about the sport of quidditch, visit this site.