Beikou or Daur Hockey
Beikou, also called Daur hockey, is a sport that has a lot of similarities to field hockey or street hockey, but is much older and has been played for over a 1000 years. The sport is unique to the Daur ethnic group in Inner Mongolia, China, and is the only place where it is played.
The sport, played only by men, is played with a knob of apricot root which is essentially used as a ball, and long wooden sticks to strike the knob.
Since Beikou is not an officially codified sport, but is rather played only at a recreational level within a small region, there is not much information available about, the rules of the game, the number of players in a team, the duration of a match, the field size, or how the scoring system works. There are some reports that recent matches are played for two 15-minute periods.
The sport can be played both during the day and night. When played at night time the ball is covered with felt and set alight.
The Molidawa Daur Cultural Association continues to keep the sport alive by conducting Beikou matches in which players wear traditional attire.
Similar Sports
- Field Hockey — played outdoors on turf, players hit a hard round ball through goals using sticks with curved ends.
- Ball Hockey — very similar to ice hockey, though played on foot and on a non-ice surface.
- Street Hockey — a team sport that was derived from Ice Hockey, though it is played on an asphalt or cement surface instead of ice, and players wear inline skates or shoes.
Related Pages
- Complete list of sports
- The Encyclopedia of Sports
- About sport in China and sport in Mongolia
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