A Brief History of Fictional ‘Star Trek’ Sports

Star Trek has a long history of athletic activity—from shipboard gymnastics to Sisko’s love of baseball keeping the sport alive in the 23rd century, the franchise has loved exploring real-world sports as recreational pastimes, but it also loves inventing a few of its own. Such was the case in this week’s Starfleet Academy, which gave us Calica, so let’s induct it into the Star Trek sporting halls of fame alongside the franchise’s other fictitious athletic achievements.

Calica

Let’s get the newbie out of the way first. A mascot-defense shootout designed to encourage our young academy heroes to learn how to handle a phaser, Calica is at least not a Starfleet-specific sport, as multiple cadets mention having previously played in leagues on their homeworlds. Played with modified phasers that can transport a targeted opponent to the sidelines to eliminate them, Calica’s round-based matches see opposing teams attempt to breach each other’s defensive lines to score points by shooting a target defended by a costume-wearing mascot.

Geskana

Briefly played by Archer and Tucker in the Enterprise episode “Desert Crossing,†Geskana was a sport played by members of Zobral’s clan, an unidentified species that basically invented lacrosse with smaller goals and more opportunities for our heroes to take their shirts off.

Vajhaq

Star Trek has a bunch of one-off sports that are mentioned in passing once and then never again—a familiar bit of worldbuilding shorthand. The brusquely named Vajhaq is one of several noted in Deep Space Nine, a ball-based game played on the planet Meridian. Sisko declined the opportunity to play a match. Surprising, considering his adoration of baseball.

Tsunkatse

Star Trek has multiple iterations of martial arts, such as Klingon mok’bara or the ancient Vulcan art of Suus Mahna (and one more newly created Earth iteration we’ll get to later), but few translated to broadcast sports the way Tsunkatse did. Almost quite literally just professional wrestling but Star Trek—right down to the appearance of Dwayne “The Rock†Johnson in the finest of his acting endeavors—Tsunkatse was a combat sport where fighters wore stun disruptors on their hands and feet and played in an arena surrounded by similarly charged panels. Tsunkatse matches could be played to multiple degrees of violence, from knockout matches to death battles.

Pan Zan

Another offhand sports mention from Enterprise, Pan Zan was an Enolian sport that was apparently very close to water polo.

Springball

An immensely popular Bajoran sport similar to Jai Alai, springball saw two opponents attempt to score points by hitting a target goal on a walled court and could be surprisingly violent—while players couldn’t punch or kick each other, they could steal shots with body checks. While primarily played with just the hands (one gloved, one ungloved, with only shots from the gloved hand capable of scoring points), Major Kira was mentioned as owning a springball racquet multiple times on DS9, so there may have been a variant of the sport that used one… or the writers confused Kira’s sport of choice with Miles and Bashir’s fondness for racquetball. A confusion that led to Lower Decks accidentally having Bajoran security officer Shax invite Boimler to a game of springball, only to play what looked a lot like racquetball as it appeared on DS9!

Pala

A field sport played by the Brunali, Pala briefly comes up on Voyager when the young ex-Borg Icheb, a Brunali himself, is invited to play it again when given the chance to return to his homeworld, but it goes unseen.

Velocity

Another phaser-based sport like Calica, Velocity saw two players trade shots to keep a Frisbee-esque disc bouncing between them, with points scored when a player failed to stop the disc from hitting their body. It’s only ever shown being played on holodecks, so it’s unknown if it’s a purely holographical sport or could be played with a real disc and phasers.

Karo-Net

We know absolutely nothing about Karo-Net other than that it exists—it’s mentioned once offhandedly by Odo while he bemoans to Quark the compromises made in relationships. Presumably, given Odo’s upbringing, Karo-Net is perhaps either a Bajoran sport or something popularized by the Cardassians during their occupation of Bajor.

Anbo-jyutsu

While we never see Anbo-jyutsu in a professional competitive environment, we would be remiss to not mention the Japanese-influenced martial art that was apparently one of Earth’s premiere combat sports by the 24th century. A one-on-one duel played in a small circular arena, Anbo players wore light armor that included a full visor to obscure their vision, battling with a staff that included a proximity sensor in one of its ends to help provide an auditory clue of where their opponent was.

The Octran Fertility Contest

Another offhanded mention from Enterprise, this contest was played in a similar manner to basketball, according to Phlox. Presumably the “fertility†aspect involved the fact that it was also played with minimal, if any, clothing.

Hoverball

While we don’t get to see Hoverball being properly played, we briefly get to see the titular ball in TNG‘s “Captain’s Holiday,†when Picard’s reading break on Risa is interrupted by the floating anti-grav device. Hoverball was apparently incredibly popular though, especially on Voyager, with a good chunk of the senior staff playing it among themselves on the holodeck in their downtime.

Hydrosailing

A maritime sport that is again mentioned offhandedly, with Kes taking holographic lessons in it on Voyager. Tuvok bluntly declines the offer to learn himself, citing that Vulcans do not hydrosail, but it’s unknown if this is a cultural distinction or down to Tuvok being a grump.

Parrises Squares

Star Trek loves a popular sport that it then never ever actually shows being played, but Parrises Squares might be the sport that’s gone the longest between us being introduced to it and seeing it get played. First mentioned in the TNG season one episode “11001001†in 1988, it would take 36 years for it to be shown on-screen in Prodigy‘s sophomore season. An apparently dangerous (and occasionally violent) sport, Parrises Squares saw teams of four use ion mallets to bat a ball into an opposing goal. The squares in the name presumably come from the grid-based court it was played on, with each square in the grid capable of changing height mid-game. No wonder people got injured a bunch!

 

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