In a Moroccan oasis town on the edge of the Sahara, nomads in turbans and tunics thwack a camel-wool ball across the desert in a traditional pastime: sand hockey.
Similar in many ways to field and ice hockey, but played barefoot and with palm wood sticks, the ancient game is called mokhacha in the local Hassani Arabic dialect.
“We play mokhacha in our spare time,” said one participant, Hamadi Boudani, at the International Nomads Festival in the southern town of M’hamid El Ghizlane.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Our ancestors were nomads and as soon as they pitched their camp somewhere they would first rest and then, to pass the time, they would start a game,” he said. “This game is part of Saharan tradition.”
The players were cheered on by enthusiastic fans as they churned up the sand in what was once a stop on the storied caravan route to Timbuktu.
They were wearing the daraa, an ample tunic favored by nomadic tribes, and a cheche cloth turban to cover their heads and faces from the desert sun.
The two teams, one in white the other in blue, played on May 1, during the annual Nomads Festival, which also celebrates song and dance and other desert traditions.
Each team is made up of at least seven players, the outline of the pitch is crudely traced by hand in the sand, and the referee is simply known as the sheikh.
Sand hockey “is part of our ancestral heritage”, said Rachid Laghouanm, who heads an association that promotes traditional sports and games in M’hamid El Ghizlane.
“It was handed down from father to son, and it is vital that it does not disappear,” he said.
Like other popular or traditional games and sports, “nomad hockey” as it is often called, is fading into oblivion.
“We are trying to create awareness about the game” by organizing competitions and encouraging players to join them, Laghouanem said.
The UK-based Hockey Museum, which says it is “the first and only museum of hockey in the world,” said that sand hockey has been around as long as any form of hockey “has been in existence.”
Forms of sand hockey are also played in Ethiopia, where it is called genna, and in Tunisia under the name oggaf, the museum says on its Web site.
These and the Moroccan version, “date back over hundreds of years and a number of these games are still thriving, almost unchanged, to this day,” it says.
Other experts believe that hockey’s precursor was a stick-and-ball game with origins as far back as ancient Greece and Egypt.
Boudani said he does not know which came first — sand, field or ice hockey — but what is clear to him is that “the nomads had no means of knowing that Westerners had a similar game.”
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
Matvei Michkov did not score on Monday, but the Philadelphia rookie had a hand in both goals as hosts the Flyers earned a 2-1 victory over the Nashville Predators. Ryan Poehling and Jamie Drysdale got the goals for the Flyers (31-36-9, 71 points), who won their third straight. Michkov and Travis Konecny assisted on both. Ivan Fedotov stopped 28 shots to earn his first win since March 1, ending a personal six-game losing streak. Zachary L’Heureux got the lone goal for Nashville. Michael McCarron and Brady Skjei got the assists for the Predators (27-39-8, 62 points), who have just four goals in their