#coolsports

Everybody is familiar with the mainstream sports that are televised, such as basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer. However, as it turns out, there are many uncommon sports played world wide that most people aren’t aware of.  To begin with, there is a rather odd sport in Finland known as “wife carrying”. This sport is pretty self-explanatory. It is exactly what it sounds like, a male athlete will run through an obstacle course with their wife on their back. The obstacle course includes different jumps, puddles and terrain. Athletes participating in this sport will enter into their local heat of runners. The top runner will receive his wife's weight in beer, five times his wife's body weight in cash and the chance to head to the nation wide championship in Finland. 

The next odd sport consists of cheese, hills and large groups of men - what could possibly go wrong? This sport is rightfully named “cheese rolling”. This event is an annual occurrence and probably for the best. Competitors take place in this unusual race in Gloucestershire, UK. The way this event works is pretty simple, a roll of cheese is rolled down a fairly steep hill and racers will charge forward to be the first to reach the bottom, obviously running after the cheese. The first person to reach the bottom of the hill will win the cheese. It does sound pretty silly, but you would be surprised to hear how many competitors and spectators attend this event every year. The downfall of this event is that there have been dozens of injuries over the years due to the steepness of the hill but the event still continues.This sport just is not for me, no matter how much cheese is won. 

This last and probably the widest sport is played under water. We all have heard of ice hockey and field hockey but now there is an alternative sport for swimmers called water hockey. This sport is played specifically underwater and can be called “octopush”. You would think that this sport would be played in the backyard with some kids when they had nothing better to do but it is quite popular all over the world. There are assigned goals for two teams, special pucks for playing under water, special gear that is worn and odd looking hockey sticks they use as their hands. This sport is played by both men and women and is sometimes televised if you really look for it. The sport sounds like it would have been recently invented by a millennial somewhere but to most peoples’ surprise it has been around since 1980. This sport has become a rather competitive sport and even has its own world championship now. At least NHL players know now that they have another backup plan if their ice hockey career doesn't work out.