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Fighting with snowballs is a privilege given to those living in places where winter is really wintry. In Sobetsu, Hokkaido of northern Japan, it has grown into a competitive sport of nearly 20 years of age.

 

The annual tournament of snowball fights, or Yukigassen, as called in Japanese (where "yuki" means snow and "gassen" means battle), is the 19th of its kind held in Showa Shinzan volcano in Sobetsu. A total of 152 teams from around Japan and 3 teams with foreign players joined the fighting this year held on Saturday and Sunday.

 

"We like to play baseball in summer, and in winter, we love the Yukigassen," a player from Sapporo, Hokkaido said, noting that both sports need accuration and quick response.

 

According to official rules of the game, fourteen players battle in a court 40 meters long and 10 meters wide. Four forwards attack, while three guards defend the flag in the center. Players behind a 90-centimeter tall snow wall pop up and fire snowballs at the opposing team, also behind a snow fort.

 

Any player hit by a snowball is out. A team loses when all of its players are eliminated, or if the opposing team captures its flag from the center of the court. Each set lasts three minutes, and the first team to win two sets takes the match.

 

"The sport is also played in parts of Finland and Norway, but it was actually born here," Tadashi Iori, assistant director of the tournament committee said, adding "the rules were decided here and we local people also invented the machine to make standard snowballs for the game."

 

Players can make their own ammunition by putting compressed snow into the machine and stamping it with feet before they get a full plate of standard snowballs 6.5 to 7.0 centimeters in diameters. The design of the machine was inspired by the making of a kind of seafood ball snack in Japan.

 

"Turning snowball fighting into a sport is aimed at boosting winter tourism," Iori said. "The Showa Shinzan volcano, Toya lake and hot springs in the area attract many visitors in summer," said Yamada, who has been a taxi driver for 30 years around the region, adding"but in winter, as there is no outstanding skiing place around, all depends on the Yukigassen."

 

"Those small hotels used to be empty in winter before the snowball fights game started in 1989," Yamada said, adding"in recent winters, they have been packed with players and visitors."

 

In recent years, over 20,000 visitors came to the tournament annually, which is the largest of its kind in Japan.

 

"Foreign players are few, compared with Japanese ones in the tournament. There are around 2,500 Yukigassen teams across Japan and some 20 prefectures have their own Yukigassen associations," Iori said.

 

Well developed as the sport is, it may have to face a new problem as winter is getting warmer in many parts of the world." The amount of snow were one third less than usual, so we have to move some 500 tons of snow from else where to the battlefield," Iori added.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 26, 2007)