bobsledding

 

winter sport in which a bobsled—a partially enclosed vehicle with steerable sledlike runners, accommodating two or four persons—hurtles down a course of iced, steeply banked, twisting inclines. A driver and three bobbers, the last one being the brakeman, compose a four-member crew. A two-person sled consists of a driver and the brakeman. A group of American and English vacationers at St. Moritz, Switzerland, developed the sport, an offspring of tobogganing, in the late 19th cent. A part of the Winter Olympic games since their inception in 1924, bobsledding is a sport of exhilarating but dangerous speed (up to 90 mi/145 km per hr). Winners rely on technical sled design, powerful push-offs at the start, and intimate course knowledge to gain split second advantages. Though Americans fared well in early Olympic bobsledding, since 1960, the Swiss, Germans, Italians, and Austrians have tended to dominate the medals. Women's bobsledding was added to the Olympics in 2002.

Bobsledding (an intentional distortion of the name for the sport of bobsleigh) is a relatively new word association game. It has two alternate forms: Bobagomi and Bobagomi Online.

Rules of the Game

The game involves at least two, but up to six, players, and in a scored match also requires an impartial judge. All that is required for play is the puck, which is any small (less than 6" in any dimension) and light (less than 8 ounces) object, that is smooth enough to be easily slid across the field of play which is any smooth, level surface. In this way the game is very similar to paper football, and a paper football is the ideal puck.

Play begins when one player (chosen at random) says any random word, and bats the puck across the field of play. The other player must immediately (in under six seconds) reply with a word that has a meaning relevant to the first word, and bat the puck back across the field of play. In informal matches, consent is required to determine if a word is a legitimate link or not; however in scored matches the judge will decide. In scored play, the first player to make three serious errors in linking loses.

Origin of the Name

The name of the game Bobsledding most probably refers to the film Cool Runnings about a Jamaican Bobsled Team and was chosen by the game's creators for its whimsy and utter irrelevance to the actual game (suggestive of the nature of the game itself).

Other Forms of Bobsledding

Bobsledding existed in its original form for about six months in the winter and spring of 2005 before alternate versions began to appear; these are the most popular.

Bobagomi

Bobagomi was the first variant of Bobsledding to come into use and quickly outshined the original in terms of popularity. Whereas Bobsledding could best be described as a cross between paper football and a word association game, Bobagomi is a cross between a word association game and Pictionary. It requires two or more players but a judge is rarely employed. The basic game consists of one player beginning by drawing a small representation of the word he has in mind, which he then writes below or next to the picture. The next player in an ordered sequence draws an arrow from that drawing to his drawing of another word, and it continues thusly. Special rules include that if another player mentions a possible connection from one word to the next, the player who is up cannot use that word for his link. Excessive and malicious mentioning of possible links to hinder another player may be punishable by penalty if deemed necessary by group consent.

The name of the game Bobagomi is a portmanteau of the word Bobsledding and the word Origami. The misspelling is intentional and captures the haphazard, light-hearted nature of the game.

In an early version of the game, there was a special provision that, at one point during the game, a player could substitute a justifiable link with any random human body part, but this could only be done once for any particular match. This rule was removed later on.

The unique twist in this version of Bobsledding is that before the match draws to a close, a period is called known as crunch time. During crunch time the rules on collaboration (that other players cannot give possible connections to other players who are currently up) are withdrawn and all the players endeavor to link from the current position back to the first word in as logical and as few links as possible, to create a complete circle of logical links.

Bobagomi Online Version (Bobwebbing)

Bobagomi Online Version is the most recent creation in the world of Bobsledding. It is very much like the pen-and-paper version of Bobagomi, however takes place over internet message boards. An ordered sequence of players (usually 5 or less in number) is decided, and they proceed, in turn, to find photographs from the internet and post them with a brief description of what it is underneath, and the next has to find a linking photo. This version does involve an impartial judge which will more freely remove flimsy links in the chain. This version is also very new, while Bobagomi is exploding in popularity, the online counterpart is, as of yet, untested. The only web forum known to take part in Bobagomi Online is the message board of Hobojo.net, where the original creators of all versions of Bobsledding as well as many of its early and star players can be contacted.

Bobmarley

Bobmarley is a subtle variation on Bobagomi, different only in that instead of using any reference, each link in the chain must be a song. The reference, however, doesn't have to be the title; it can be the artist, the subject matter, the album or even the length and other minutia about the song. Its name refers to reggae legend Bob Marley, and is at times also called Bobdylan after, obviously, Bob Dylan, for the reason that both are musicians with the first name Bob.

External links

• Hobojo.net

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