On Tuesday, Chaminade OSAL hosted another first-time event for students – an inflatable jousting tournament – which was held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Vi and Paul Loo Student Center.
Suggested by OSAL employee Daniel Cordial, the tournament was broken down into seven rounds, since 14 students signed up to participate. Even though other events were happening around campus at the time, OSAL said the turnout for the tournament was still successful.
“I’ve never really seen a jousting tournament,” said Starr Benson, a junior who works for OSAL. “I would see it on TV, and it was so funny. I wanted to try it, which I did, and it’s harder than it looks.”
The competition was similar to the sumo tournament, which happened two weeks ago. Cordial wrote each person’s name down on pieces of paper, which he would pick randomly from a box. Two names would be drawn out at random. The two students would stand on opposing sides of an inflatable field. Cordial would hand two large sticks to the contestants, who would use the sticks to hit one another.
The two contestants would battle it out but the contestant who is still standing on the field would be the winner. The winners of each round would then advance to the final round, in which one winner would be chosen.
Junior Ku Kanakaole, who also won the sumo tournament, was crowned the champion of the jousting tournament. Kanakaole won a $25 Starbucks gift card from OSAL.
“I’m glad I won,” Kanakaole said. “But now I just want to relax and play for fun with my friends.”
Fa-Reid Teves, a freshman, also participated in the tournament. Although he did not make it to the final round, he was glad that he had a chance to experience the jousting tournament.
“I thought we had a friendly competition,” said Teves, a Biology major. “We got to know more of the students around campus, make new friends and have a good time.”
After the competition, students were free to play against one another for fun until 8 p.m.
Cordial said that other new activities have been planned for the semester so that students can enjoy together, such as massage therapy and hula dancing classes.
Benson is also looking forward to more activities like the jousting tournament. She said that although gender-oriented events happen around campus – sumo and jousting tournaments for boys and Zumba and yoga classes for girls – anyone is welcome to participate.
“I’m happy that we’re doing out of the ordinary things, like the jousting and sumo wrestling,” Benson said. “You don’t see a lot of this at Chaminade, and it’s not because we can’t do it. It’s because we don’t have a lot of encouragement sometimes, but as you can see or hear from the responses, it’s a good turnout. I hope I see more of these kinds of events, even after I’ve graduated and gone.”