DCHP-3

murderball

DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)

Spelling variants:
murder ball, murder-ball

1n. — Sports

a game where players on two teams attempt to hit each other with balls; dodgeball.

Type: 3. Semantic Change — This meaning likely emerged as an informal term for dodgeball (see the 1965, 1986 & 1993 quotations) but is now the common name of the game in Canada. Dodgeball apparently originated as a schoolyard game, but now is played by all ages.
COD-2 (s.v. "murderball") only defines murderball as a synonym for dodgeball, and does not mention wheelchair rugby. OED-3 marks this meaning as "orig. Canad.".

Quotations

1965
Girls let the boys carry their books for a price and dozens of pairs of shoes were polished. A murder-ball game in the gymnasium, watched by 600 students was held. Boys from the school's technical course challenged teachers. The teachers lost, one suffering a broken nose and another a dislocated shoulder.
1986
Almost every day, they go swimming and sometimes they play in the schoolyard. Baseball and soccer are popular, but one of the favourites is called murder ball. "We used to call it dodge ball, but they call it murder ball, and the way they throw the ball sometimes, it could be murder," Delfiaco said.
1993
As an example, they would rarely play basketball, although we had nets at the edge of the water. Most times when they had the ball it would become "murderball." When one unsuspecting boy was hit with a volleyball at full speed in the face it was considered hilarious.
2007
Trapped by nanny rules and zero tolerance schools, most [modern-day children] will never understand the primitive appeal of murder ball, Red Rover, "Indian" wrestling, schoolyard brawls and snowball wars involving elaborate forts and mass raids on the "girls' side" of the school grounds.
2014
The two women, who both retired from the Saint John Police Force six years ago, organized a 40th reunion at a west side home on Saturday for the graduating class of 1974 . Of the 36 who graduated, 23 were able to attend. Chisholm remembers training as brutal, but said it was expected they could keep up. "We used to play a game called murder ball, and I don't know why some of us didn't die. It was really rough, but they expected that from us and we delivered." The graduates were the first female police officers on the force in the Port City. The director of the academy at that time, W.J.R. MacDonald, travelled throughout the Maritimes to speak with police forces and councils about hiring women. Some places, like Nova Scotia, refused to even consider hiring women.
2n. — Sports

the original name for wheelchair rugby (see Image 1).

Type: 1. Origin — Murderball was developed in Winnipeg by a group of five Canadian wheelchair athletes who sought to create a game for quadriplegic athletes who had reduced arm and hand function. The game was renamed 'wheelchair rugby' (see the 2005 quotation) and was recognized at the 2000 Sydney Paralympic Games as a full medal sport. Teams are co-ed and each player is assessed and assigned a sport classification based on their ability level, and teams must have a mix of classification values on the court so players compete with teammates with different functional abilities. In teams of four, players aim to carry the ball across the opposing team's goal line (see the second 1981 quotation).
There is an international foundation (established in 1993) that governs the sport in three zones across the world: the Americas Zone, the Asia-Oceania Zone, and the European Zone. The game's popularity increased after a documentary titled Murderball was released in 2005. In the US, the sport is known as "quad rugby". See also the International Wheelchair Rugby Federation (IWRF) resource.
OED-3 marks this meaning as "orig. Canad.".

Quotations

1981
The events include swimming, track and field, snooker, table tennis, weightlifting, rifle and pistol shooting, volleyball and such lesser-known sports as murderball, goalball and showdown. Murderball is for wheelchair athletes and is similar to basketball. However, there are goals at each end of the court and the ball has to be carried over the goalline to score a point. It is primarily aimed at quadraplegics who cannot shoot a basketall at a rim because of limited use of their arms. Competitors crash into each other with their wheelchairs while dribbling the basketball, thus giving the sport its name.
1981
One of the most exciting and bruising team sports at the Canadian Games for the Disabled in Scarborough this week is called murderball. The game is unique to Canada, not because it's outlawed elsewhere but because Manitobian Jerry Terwin invented it in Winnipeg only four years ago and it has yet to catch on internationally. The sport is played by people in wheelchairs on a regulation size basketball court, and some rules are similar, but that's about as far as its relationship to the sport goes. Instead of the sound of smashing bodies, there's the crunch of wheelchairs as teams of four race up and down the court to score a goal. There are no nets, only pilons [sic] spaced several feet apart at opposite ends of the court. The object is to muscle your way between the pilons [sic] with a volleyball safely secured in lap. And these men and women stop at nothing -- short of murder -- to get that ball across.
2005
It was fun. It filled a competitive void. They called it murderball, and talked it up with the people who ran wheelchair sports in Canada. It moved quickly across the country, and exploded once it got into the United States. The name was changed -- wheelchair rugby is easier for potential sponsors to deal with than murderball -- and became a full-fledged medal sport at the Athens Paralympics last year.
2013
Wheelchair rugby is a team sport for athletes with a disability. It is also known as "quad rugby" because players are required to have disabilities that include at least some loss of function in at least three limbs, and most are medically classified as quadriplegic, Coleman explained, noting it was originally called "murderball: because it is a rough and tumble sport that is exciting to watch and fun to play."

References

Images

Image 1: A <i>murderball</i> game between Canada and the US. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Image 1: A murderball game between Canada and the US. Source: Wikimedia Commons.