Magazine feature

Client: "Space News", Gwent

Audience: Pre-to-teen children

Brief: Outline the rules of the most complicated - and popular - sport in the universe

TUNNEL TEAM - THE GREATEST SPECTATOR SPORT IN THE UNIVERSE

Tunnel Team Rules

For 9000 Earth years, the Zeets of Apsigon have been spreading their culture by visiting planets around the civilised universe and signing their best athletes up to the Intergalactic Tunnel Team League.

Each side has two teams of ten Travellers and Blockers. All four teams are encased in spheres of Zeet Esseraferama Memory Plastic (ZEMP). Each player uses a Zeet Thermosuction Lance (ZTL) combined with a Zeet Gas Pack (ZGP) worn on the back.

The Travellers first use their ZTL's in travel mode to roll their ZEMP sphere off the starting mound, and then switch to stretch mode to heat up their sphere to create a 500-metre tunnel to score one point.

The opposing team's Blockers use their own combination of sphere and tunnel to prevent them succeeding.

Travel Mode

Activating 'Grab' on the ZTL fires the suction pad at the end of the lance onto the sphere wall, forming an instant bond using a Zeet combination of chemistry, magnetism and electricity.

When the player activates 'Reel', the tiny but powerful thermo-electric winch inside the ZTL literally wrenches him upwards toward the suction pad.

The sphere rolls toward the player's body weight until he activates 'Release' disengaging the suction pad and allowing the player to repeat the travel cycle.

Stretch mode

Pressing the ZTL's suction pad against the wall and activating 'Heat' raises the temperature of the pad to 650 C in less than three seconds. The ZEMP sphere reacts to that heat by becoming soft and pliable within a 6-metre circle. The ZTL logic circuits then instruct the ZGP to release enough of the players' pressured breathing supply to inflate the sphere as the wall is pushed out in various formations.

Once the size of the tunnel created exceeds the 500-metre limit, cells in the ZEMP stretch to open, allowing the internal atmosphere to escape with a shrill whistling sound (indicating the point scored) and deflating the tunnel to its original spherical format once more.

On the field

No two Tunnel Team fields are alike. Zeet officials visit open areas on planets signing up with the League, searching for suitable playing areas. With the help of expert Zeet builders, they transform an ordinary marsh into a Tunnel Team field.

A good field needs vegetation, gassy marshes, good audience and outside broadcasting facilities and, of course, water. Water absorbs ZTL heat and makes it impossible to push a tunnel wall any further in that direction, so rivers and lakes are of great tactical importance.

Below is a classic scene from the closing moments of last year's Manjo Merenguo Memorial Chalice semi-final, in the Fladge NackerDeem marsh on Huug Fove.

Underneath the vidscanner on the left, the Zeet Miteeteez blocking snake is seconds away from pushing the Trinn Grotthrattler's double into water and shrinking it down to its original spherical format.

Visible from the vidscanner on the right, but not at ground level, is a new leg of what used to be a Zeet double before the Trinn blockers started their tactical bow to stop it.

It's a difficult game to play, but an easy one to watch. Try it sometime - 94 octillion Tunnel Team vidaddicts can't be wrong!

END