Calabim Office
Hockey
'Calabim' because that's who plays it: 'office'
because that's where it's played; and 'hockey' because... well, there are
sticks involved. It's not really a sport
unless you can hit somebody with a stick, after all.
The origin of the pastime is obscure, given that
Calabim are not particularly known for keeping accurate records (or, indeed,
any records at all). The popularity of
Calabim Office Hockey, however, is quite recent - and has as much to do with
its surprising utility for Hell as anything else. This is not to say that the game does not
have its own rude charm, but it would be unlikely to be tolerated if it was not
also useful.
The rules are fairly simple. Two teams of Calabim (usually between three
and five to a team) compete to keep possession of a 'puck' (usually a hunk of
steel or concrete weighing at least fifty pounds) for a period of one minute
intervals. Play begins with a bout of
rock/paper/scissors (coins tend to explode when subject to the interested
attention of five or more Calabim at once) between the two team leaders; the
winner gets to throw the puck into a suitable play area. Both teams then move to collect the puck; a
point is scored when one player holds onto it for a full minute. Once a point has been scored, the holder of
the puck throws it into the air again and play repeats. No player may attack another until someone
playing the game has touched the puck; after that, well, it's considered
uncouth to actually kill anyone. More to
the point, it's also extremely unsafe, as play officially ends when the Malakim show up.
As one might imagine, the property damage is
significant. While Office Hockey teams
actually will go to some effort to not kill any of the talking monkeys in any
but the most callous of campaigns (for much the same reasons that they avoid
other forms of casual, public mass murder), the resulting Disturbance will be
quite loud, obvious and easy to trace.
Which is why Hell usually makes sure that four or five games are going
off at once, preferably a decent distance away from the actual Infernal operation going on that
day. Unless there isn't one scheduled,
but Hell wants the Host to think that there was one. Or maybe Hell just wanted to see what
Heaven's reaction time was in a particular geographic area. The reasons go on.
Calabim, by the way, tend to love this game with a
passion. While it rewards typical
Calabite behavior (random acts of destruction, liberally scattered across the
landscape), there's more to Office Hockey than that. It really is a legitimate sport; demons
serious about playing it have worked out strategies, standard plays, maneuvers,
even training exercises. Teams have even
started experimenting with specialized player positions and roles. It's not yet to the point where Nybbas can rake off a piece of the action, but the Media
has high hopes for the sport (to the point of making sure that only distorted
versions of games make it into the papers).
In fact, if they could get the talking monkeys to play a version themselves, then you could eventually be able to have the
Symphony accept the Role of an office hockey player, which itself could be
useful...
As for Heaven? They're appalled, of course. Except for the Archangels
who've noticed that thing about Roles, too.
Well, one