Shinty

Shinty ( Scottish Gaelic: Camanachd ) is an ancient Celtic sport from Scotland. There it is one of the most popular sports. It is played with rackets and a ball.

Shinty is a precursor of hockey and ice hockey.

The game

The aim of the game is to get a small ball into a goal (or Hail ), which stands at the end of a 120 to 160 -yard -long field. The ball is played with the caman, a bat of about one meter in length.

A team consists of twelve players - a goalkeeper, two defenders and nine attackers. The game is played in two halves of 45 minutes each. Apart from the goalkeeper no player may play the ball with his hand.

History

Shinty has its origins in hurling, which was brought from the Gaelic settlers from Ireland to Scotland, and bandy. In Scotland was played until the 14th century hurling, but with a different kind of racket.

Nowadays Shinty is played almost exclusively in the Scottish Highlands, but it was once so common in the Lowlands, there under the name common / cammon ( caman ), cammock (after the Scottish- Gaelic CAMAG ), knotty and many others.

Today the sport is organized by the Camanachd Association ( Comunn na Camanachd ).

League and Cup

There are several leagues, the top two at the national level, the more important competition, however, the Scottish Cup and Camanachd Association Challenge Cup, short Camanachd Cup.

This has been dominated in the last twenty years of Kingussie. Another important club is Newtonmore, Kingussie directly. Interestingly, these two clubs are in the cup to each other met for the first time in 1984. In 2004 there were the rare event that neither Kingussie Newtonmore yet reached the final of the Camanachd Cup, but Inveraray and Fort William. Inveraray won 1-0.

University Sports

Almost all major universities in Scotland have a team. Until some years ago the teams of Glasgow and Edinburgh dominated, but in recent years, the Robert Gordon University and Dundee Universities gained importance in the struggle for Littlejohn vase.

Internationally

Shinty world exists in different versions and names. Thus, the Canadian style of play, which was brought by Scottish settlers in the small village of Windsor, Nova Scotia, there still often referred to as Shinney.

As a reminder of the roots of Shinty Hurling every year there are a competition between the national teams of Scotland and Ireland. In recent years Ireland has usually won, but also Scotland had times of great success.