QWC strategy

[frantyck at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 26855

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., foxmoth at q... wrote:
>     Also, there's usually more at stake in a sports final than 
> winning the cup.  There's money too...suppose the take is 
> divided between the teams according to the point margin but the 
> team who catches the Snitch gets a bonus.  In that case,  the 
> Bulgarian team might actually be better off  to lose the match by 
> a small margin rather than let Ireland catch the Snitch and win by 
> a large one. Also there's draft choices...at least in American 
> sports the winning team gets last pick of the new players. Now 
> Bulgaria is losing their best player, who won't be in training for 
a 
> full season on account of the Tri-wizard Tournament, so they 
> might just be better off coming in second.
>   I admit I am not that versed in sports, so maybe someone who 
> is could tell me if any of this makes sense?
> 
> Pippin


I'm glad that Pippin went the hardheaded, businesslike way and 
brought up money and longterm strategy in sport... I'd like to offer 
an example.

For anyone passionate about cricket, which is the endless English 
game with a bat and a hard ball and polite players standing around an 
enormous field all day, the test match that lasts 5 days is the real 
thing, not the much racier one-day match that is becoming far more 
popular. I'm not sure about this, but I believe the main reason for 
the one-day match overtaking the test match is that it is so much 
more convenient to broadcast and to watch. In tournaments with 
several national teams competing, a series of tests would take just 
too long.

Likewise with Quidditch. What an administrative nightmare it would be 
if all the hundred thousand magical spectators stayed on that patch 
of the moors for as long as it took to watch the entire final! How 
inconvenient to hang around and wait for the end. I'm sure there's 
some time limit to the matches imposed by authorities and by 
sponsors, not least because the Ministry have to conceal everything 
from Muggles.

Long Quidditch may be the pure form of the sport, played at less high-
profile occasions including, probably, matches between local teams.

Finally: who says international competitions are the place where the 
purest forms of a sport are played? Local habits and variations must 
be ironed out at tournaments, and in turn, the popularity of such 
tournaments makes the tournament set of rules slowly replace local 
ones.

Um, assuming the Long and Short Quidditch idea is plausible, what 
would you call the two?