Dodge the ball: Winnipeg hosts Western Dodgeball Championships

Dodgeball Manitoba hosted the Western Canadian championships over the weekend.

Forty-seven teams from across Canada and the United States gathered in Winnipeg, to find out who’s the best in the western region.

Over the weekend, Dodgeball Manitoba hosted the Western Dodgeball Championships – a two-day national tournament, showcasing skill, speed and competition of the athletes.

Taken place in the Dakota Fieldhouse at 1188 Dakota Street, Saturday was reserved for gendered divisions and Sunday was for mixed divisions.

Owner of Dodgeball Winnipeg Nick Grenier was one of the players at the scene on Sunday. He said the game is just as how people know from gym class, but with “elaborate rulebook.”

“It’s six versus six and there’s six balls on the court. And the goal is to eliminate the other team first, and then you play for 40 minutes and whoever accumulates the most points wins the match,” Grenier explained.

He said Winnipeg always send four to five for men’s team and “three-ish women’s teams to club championships,” and majority of them play in the playoffs. Expanding to international scope, Grenier said Canada is “one of the juggernauts.”

“We’ve played against teams like U.S., Malaysia, Hong Kong – they are all really good. Australia is really good. So it’s a really tight competition.”