Just this past weekend a very big event took place. In Swedish it is called “Brännbollsyran”  Literally translated it means “burn ball”. This past weekend teams gathered and played each other, followed by a lot of drinking. University students especially, have a great time, just before graduating or going home for the summer holidays they gather to attend and participate in this fun event together.

Brännboll is:

Imagine a game similar to baseball, no fixed pitcher or catcher or any positions for that matter, instead everybody on the “inside” team each take a turn batting. The batter throws the ball up in the air and then takes a swing at it shooting it as far away as he/she can. Once the ball is in the air the person runs around 4 cones, if the “outside” team (who are trying to throw the ball back to their “outer”) catch the ball and the person who has hit the ball is still running between cones they are “burned” and have to go back to the first cone.  Home runs exist, and believe me, people really want to be able to do one of those. After a certain number of minutes the teams switch positions so that the team who were catching the ball are now batting and running.

Brännboll is played as a summer game in almost all schools. This is most younger students’ alltime favorite game.  As an end of term activity teams usually dress up with different themes and have tons of fun together. In some school cases the teachers play against the graduating class. All in all a very good social and bonding game.