Hardcourt Bike Polo is a variation of traditional Bicycle Polo in which teams of players ride bicycles and use mallets to strike a small street-hockey ball into a goal. Two teams of three players play in an enclosed rectangular area. Cones are placed at each long end of the rectangle and serve as goalposts. At the beginning of the game, the ball is placed in the middle of the court the players wait behind their own goals. Following a countdown of “3, 2, 1, Polo”, both teams charge the ball.
A player may hit the ball in two ways: a “shot” or a “shuffle“. A shot is made with either end of the mallet head whereas a shuffle is made with the side. In order to score a goal, a player must hit the ball into the opposing team’s goal with a shot; if the player uses a shuffle, the goal does not count and play continues. Following a goal, the scoring team returns to their own half of the court. After the scoring team returns to their half, the scored-on team may cross the half line and resume play. The game continues until a team reaches a pre-defined limit of three to five goals. Some games also have a time limit, which is informally invoked by spectators as play draws on.
A player who “dabs” (touches the ground with their foot) must undertake some form of remedial penalty before making contact with the ball again. This usually involves “tapping out” (riding to a designated point on the court and touching it with the mallet). The amount of contact is generally restricted to “mallet to mallet, player to player, or bike to bike“. Additionally, players are not allowed to T-bone (crash their bicycles intentionally into) other players.
