Take the Bunny and Drain It!

I have the ball, no you have the ball, no I have the ball... Wait, what game is this again?

via GIPHY

The land of sports–players, fans, coaches–can be a very strange subculture. And one of the strangest things about it is its language. Every sport has a different set of terms which, to an outsider, sound like something your one-year-old made up.

And what’s more fun than using silly language to write a silly piece?

So, take a look at these three lists of sports terms. Don’t look up any of the words that you don’t know!

LIST A:

Bonspiel

Vice-skip

Deep square leg

Split end

Hops

LIST B:

Hog line

Bump and run

Yorker

Back stick

Drain

LIST C:

Swingy ice

Pooch kick

Googly

Flop

Flat slap

Now, choose the one in which you know the fewest words. Have some fun, and write a poem using all five! What do you think of when you see “hog line”? A line of pigs? People at an eating competition? Go crazy!

Afterwards, using the same list, write another poem using at least three of the five words. But this time, look up the words before you use them. All these terms come from different sports, so you don’t need to write a piece using three different sports. Use your skill for image and metaphor!

For bonus points, show your poem to a sports fanatic and see how many of the terms they recognize. Were you poetical enough to conceal the terms? Did you want to highlight them? Did you make a sports fanatic see their favorite sport in an entirely new life? Let us know in the comments!