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"FacebookPinterest\n\n From left to right: Joey Halvorsen, Brian Dillman, and Eric Kremin\n\nAtop their bicycles and in the throes of competitive hardcourt polo, San Francisco&amp;amp;#x2019;s Beavers do not resemble beavers, or typical professional athletes, or even really men. They look instead like a trio of boys &amp;amp;#x2013; their knees perpetually bloodied, their cheeks pink with ertion, their bangs slapped across their foreheads in sweaty noodles. Like boys, they shove and tease and threaten. Like boys, they&amp;amp;#x2019;re skeptical about their own vulnerability and curious about their capacity for pain. They boast and chide and believe in the perfect infallibility of their judgments. They hoot and gloat when they win, and they sulk miserably when they lose.\n\nRight now, they are very far from losing. It&amp;amp;#x2019;s a warm August night in Minneapolis, and the team &amp;amp;#x2013; Brian Dillman, Joey Halvorsen and Eric Kremin &amp;amp;#x2013; is halfway through the final game of the fifth annual North American Bike Polo Championships. The only thing standing between them and their modest spoils (a small cash sum, a homemade trophy and a one year&amp;amp;#x2019;s supply of bragging rights among the 50 or so other teams here tonight) is Seattle&amp;amp;#x2019;s Guardians. Beloved in the tightly-knit but rapidly growing bike polo community, The Guardians are lauded for their scrupulous adherence to the sport&amp;amp;#x2019;s unwritten codes: they do not throw elbows, talk shit or milk the clock. They are fan favorites here, cheered on by many in the crowd who fear that the sport is becoming too rough, too competitive, too ugly.\n\nThey are also, at the moment, getting their asses soundly and pitilessly handed to them by The Beavers.\n\nThis is because Kremin, Dillman and Halvorsen have very little nostalgia for polo&amp;amp;#x2019;s subtler proprieties. After years of playing together (first in Milwaukee, where Kremin and Dillman met, and now in the Bay Area, where they picked up Halvorsen), they&amp;amp;#x2019;ve developed a formula. They play fast and rough. They train hard and &amp;amp;#x201C;clock in&amp;amp;#x201D; during tournaments, avoiding alcohol, parties and most social interaction with other teams. Most importantly, they ecute an uncannily flexible game. On the court, they&amp;amp;#x2019;re chameleons &amp;amp;#x2013; capable of assessing and hammering their opponents&amp;amp;#x2019; weak spots with lethal immediacy.\n\nThese qualities are what make them both the most exciting team for an outsider to watch, and the most intolerable for many other die-hard polo disciples. If The Beavers, with their elastic strategies and win-at-all-costs mindset, could help the sport make its first foray into some form of mainstream recognition, they&amp;amp;#x2019;re also its biggest scapegoats &amp;amp;#x2013; a trio of braggarts intent on uprooting the gritty communality that birthed polo in the first place.\n\nBefore going any further, here&amp;amp;#x2019;s where some basic, technical stuff about American hardcourt bike polo might be of service to the reader. Teams comprise three players, each carrying a three-foot mallet, usually made of light metal and outfitted with a hard plastic head. One end of this head is hollowed out and intended for ball handling; the other is flat, for shooting. Players ride free-wheel bicycles with a front brake and one low gear for prompt acceleration. Games are to five, or to whoever holds the lead after 12 minutes elapse. The sport is played on a regulation-sized roller hockey court &amp;amp;#x2013; and would in fact resemble hockey, to some degree, if hockey players wore fewer pads and were capable of reaching 30 miles per hour in about three seconds. Each match begins with a &amp;amp;#x201C;joust,&amp;amp;#x201D; a sort of macabre hybrid of a jump ball and a game of chicken in which the speediest member from each team sprints from behind his goal toward a resting ball at center court. Player-to-player contact is permissible, which in most cases works to The Beavers&amp;amp;#x2019; advantage. They describe their style of play as &amp;amp;#x201C;gritty, slappy and grabby.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nFor better or for worse, tonight&amp;amp;#x2019;s final is a textbook example of Beavers polo. Dillman, who is six-five and deceptively agile, boomerangs out from behind his own goal and scores first. Kremin, a six-two defenseman, follows up 30 seconds later. From there, Dillman goes on a tear. He scores twice more, putting The Beavers up 4-0 with two minutes left to play. At this point, The Guardians tumble into full-blown panic mode. All three of them swoop toward the Beavers&amp;amp;#x2019; goal, but it&amp;amp;#x2019;s a desperate miscalculation. Halvorsen, the smallest and quickest, scoots a pass behind his opponents, setting Dillman up for a fast break. He coasts across the court and taps in the tournament-winning goal. The Beavers hop off their bikes, discard their gloves and hurtle into each other&amp;amp;#x2019;s arms.\n\nHere&amp;amp;#x2019;s where something bizarre happens. In your average sports team victory montage, this is where you&amp;amp;#x2019;d cue the legion of friends and love interests to stream onto the court, doling out back slaps and cheek kisses. Instead, as Kremin cracks open a bottle of champagne and begins spraying his teammates with foam, the crowd goes silent and sort of dissolves. No one rushes in.\n\nThe Beavers, now the best bike polo team on this continent, are left holding only each other. They rejoice at the top, kings of a tiny, specific kingdom. They appear fatigued and ecstatic and achingly, unequivocally alone.\n\n\n\nIf you are like most Americans, you&amp;amp;#x2019;ve probably never heard of The Beavers, The Guardians or competitive bike polo in general. You are very likely unaware that the sport, in its first iteration on grass, was featured in the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. You didn&amp;amp;#x2019;t know that its modern, hardcourt version was developed in Seattle 90 years later by a cadre of off-duty bike messengers looking to kill time between assignments &amp;amp;#x2013; or that it&amp;amp;#x2019;s now played in dozens of countries, including Ukraine, Thailand, Lumbourg, Belgium, France, Brazil, India, Japan and Australia.\n\nPerhaps most crucially, though: you don&amp;amp;#x2019;t understand why thousands of people across the world would forfeit their own time and dollars (in the Beavers&amp;amp;#x2019; case: most of it, and about 15,000 of them every year, respectively), to compete in a sport that&amp;amp;#x2019;s basically unknown, unappreciated and perpetually penniless.\n\nIt&amp;amp;#x2019;s this last question that The Beavers are grappling with tonight. A month after their win, we&amp;amp;#x2019;re sitting in the offices of DZR Shoes, where Dillman, 27, daylights as a sales manager. Located above a Chinese restaurant in a tucked-away alley near San Francisco&amp;amp;#x2019;s financial district, the place is some combination of retail space, dorm room and tree house. There&amp;amp;#x2019;s an enormous roll-down projector, rows of carefully positioned sneakers on raw wood shelving, and a cluster of pricey-looking bikes tucked into a rack. There&amp;amp;#x2019;s also a generous stock of liquor atop an old fridge, a &amp;amp;#x201C;repurposed&amp;amp;#x201D; street sign or two, and a grimy fish tank burbling in one corner. The Beavers sip Tecates and review Vimeo footage of their championship win, which Dillman is projecting from a nearby computer.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;I don&amp;amp;#x2019;t love the shit out of winning,&amp;amp;#x201D; he begins. He has a swimmer&amp;amp;#x2019;s build, a mop of wavy, dirty-blond hair and the hokey vestiges of a Minnesota accent. &amp;amp;#x201C;I hate losing so much that that is what I win &amp;amp;#x2013; that I&amp;amp;#x2019;m not down and doubting everything about my life because I lost a polo tournament.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nHe pauses for a moment, sips his beer. &amp;amp;#x201C;A lot of my happiness in life is dependent on winning in polo. Which is ridiculous, perhaps, to some people. But that&amp;amp;#x2019;s what it means to us.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;Think about the worst thing you&amp;amp;#x2019;ve ever done,&amp;amp;#x201D; Kremin continues. He&amp;amp;#x2019;s 24, with Windex-colored eyes, pointy features and a reputation on the court for even pointier elbows. &amp;amp;#x201C;You&amp;amp;#x2019;re so ashamed of it. That&amp;amp;#x2019;s our Monday when we don&amp;amp;#x2019;t win. You&amp;amp;#x2019;re at work the next day, just like, &amp;amp;#x2018;Fuck! That sucked! That sucked!&amp;amp;#x2019; &amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nKremin and Dillman met, playing pickup, in a freezing Milwaukee parking garage six years ago. They won their first world championship in Berlin in 2010 (they each have a forearm tattoo to prove it), then spent the next couple of years rebuilding after their former teammate, Joe Burge, left the sport. They found 19-year-old Halvorsen when they moved to San Francisco in 2012. Since then, they&amp;amp;#x2019;ve been dissecting competitors with surgical precision. They&amp;amp;#x2019;re heavily favored to win the sport&amp;amp;#x2019;s fifth annual world championship, which is slated to take place in Florida about two months from tonight.\n\nPart of their success is pure chance: in a sport without formalized position assignments, The Beavers are uniquely niche-y players. Kremin is a superb defender with an uncanny court sense. Dillman, who played hockey in college, acts as a burly obstructionist. And Halvorsen, a whip-quick ball handler who came to the sport through fid-gear cycling, scores most of the team&amp;amp;#x2019;s goals. The other half of it is something less tangible &amp;amp;#x2013; the sort of simple, childish desire that&amp;amp;#x2019;s the stuff of NFL pre-game huddles, professional boxing weigh-ins and schoolyard tug-of-war matches.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;There&amp;amp;#x2019;s not one person, not one team that&amp;amp;#x2019;s going to be better than us on the court,&amp;amp;#x201D; Halvorsen says. &amp;amp;#x201C;When you go in with that attitude, it&amp;amp;#x2019;s hard to lose.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nIt takes about 30 seconds with The Beavers to understand just how serious they are about polo. What&amp;amp;#x2019;s less clear is the extent to which the sport can reciprocate the sentiment. Sponsorships for even the best teams are measly, and every aspect of the game &amp;amp;#x2013; from tournament planning and setup to rulebook addendums &amp;amp;#x2013; is conducted by democratic consensus. Even elite players have day jobs, and the financial constraints inherent in routinely traveling across the world for tournaments make rivalries tricky to nurse: players inevitably end up crashing on each other&amp;amp;#x2019;s couches, borrowing each other&amp;amp;#x2019;s equipment and sharing rides. Some adore these facets of the game. The Beavers, for the most part, tend to view them as barriers to legitimacy.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;People&amp;amp;#x2019;s arguments are always, &amp;amp;#x201C; &amp;amp;#x2018;It&amp;amp;#x2019;s our sport. We can do what we want with it,&amp;amp;#x2019; &amp;amp;#x201D; Kremin says. &amp;amp;#x201C;There comes a certain point where it&amp;amp;#x2019;s like, &amp;amp;#x201C;It is our sport. But, at the same time, it&amp;amp;#x2019;s a sport.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nAnd yet in spite of its conflicts and constraints, bike polo has been growing rapidly. Since 2008, the amount of yearly tournaments hosted in the United States has shot up from 28 to 174. The number of teams in the U.S. has increased from 11 to 180 since 2007. It&amp;amp;#x2019;s currently played in approximately 400 cities in 53 countries, and two new clubs are created every week.\n\nLarge companies are sniffing around, too. Dillman pauses the game and pulls up a few ads on YouTube &amp;amp;#x2013; two from Banana Boat sunscreen, one from Nike, one from Adidas. The Beavers know all of the players featured in each of the commercials by name, and they chuckle together at the Adidas ad &amp;amp;#x2013; a documentary-style mini-profile of Britain&amp;amp;#x2019;s all-female &amp;amp;#x201C;Tornado Riders.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;They found like the six attractive girls in the sport and put them in one room,&amp;amp;#x201D; Dillman says. &amp;amp;#x201C;It&amp;amp;#x2019;s really funny to see it portrayed this way.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nBike polo is still very much an experiment. Its dualities &amp;amp;#x2013; it is growing in size yet still incredibly localized; it is becoming exceptionally competitive while remaining skeptical of its own competitive impulses &amp;amp;#x2013; get at the central challenges of being a Beaver &amp;amp;#x2013; or a serious player of any still-developing sport, for that matter. How long is it sensible to invest your own time and money without a clear promise of meaningful returns? When is it appropriate to abandon community for the sake of competition? And what, exactly, does it mean to be the absolute best at a sport that very few people know about?\n\n\n\nIf bike polo has an analogue anywhere, it&amp;amp;#x2019;s likely skateboarding. Both sports are urban mutations of better-established ones (surfing and traditional polo), and both began with participants fashioning their own tools out of found materials: the first skateboards were made from wood planks and roller skate wheels, and early bike polo players crafted their mallets from discarded ski poles and PVC pipe. Just as it took several years for skateboarding to gain recognition in mainstream media (Life Magazine ran a cover story in 1965 titled &amp;amp;#x201C;The Craze and the Menace of SKATEBOARDS&amp;amp;#x201D;), hardcourt bike polo, now 15 years old, has only recently begun to garner attention from outlets like The New York Times, NPR and the BBC. And though both began as alternatives to traditional athletic pastimes, they have each at times struggled to reconcile an influx of competitive energy.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;There are people who want it to be a casual, fun game that&amp;amp;#x2019;s always in good spirits and never gets too serious,&amp;amp;#x201D; says Ben Schultz, the director of North American Hardcourt, the governing body that oversees all polo competitions in the U.S. and Canada. &amp;amp;#x201C;Then there are folks who are trying to push the limits of the sport. They&amp;amp;#x2019;re trying to see how good they can be, and in what way. The only way to know that is to test yourself against other people who feel the same way.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nThis is why teams like The Beavers are not just participants in the sport. They&amp;amp;#x2019;re also de facto diplomats, Schultz says &amp;amp;#x2013; charged, to some degree, with elevating its profile.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;The short answer is, &amp;amp;#x201C;Yeah, some people can&amp;amp;#x2019;t stand the Beavers.&amp;amp;#x201D; But &amp;amp;#x201C;there has to be somebody that you&amp;amp;#x2019;re looking at and saying &amp;amp;#x2018;I want to be like that person\u2026 You have to have faces and names that people can associate with the game and say &amp;amp;#x2018;I want to do that. I want to play like that.&amp;amp;#x2019; &amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nSkateboarding had the benefit of many such public faces early on. Around 1960, there was Larry Stevenson, a publisher of Surf Guide magazine, who developed the first mass-produced boards and dispatched teams of skaters to sell them. A few years later, following the 1966 release of The Endless Summer, the surf legend Hobie Alter teamed up with the film&amp;amp;#x2019;s director, Bruce Brown, and toured down the East Coast in a bus packed with skateboarders. They stopped at various points across the country, screening the film and conducting demos for thousands of fans.\n\nThe Beavers haven&amp;amp;#x2019;t experienced a reception like this, but they have flirted with the prospect of serious sponsorship money. In early 2013, Dillman saw David Zimberoff, the global marketing director for the bike giant SRAM, at a convention in Las Vegas. He approached Zimberoff and asked him if he had heard of bike polo &amp;amp;#x2013; its teams, its growth, its dearth, thus far, of robust financial support.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;He&amp;amp;#x2019;s like, &amp;amp;#x2018;What&amp;amp;#x2019;s the ask?&amp;amp;#x2019; &amp;amp;#x201D; Dillman recalls.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;I was unprepared. I was like, &amp;amp;#x2018;What do you mean? I don&amp;amp;#x2019;t know.&amp;amp;#x2019; &amp;amp;#x201D;\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;How much for you to be team SRAM?&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;I thought about that. Pictures in my head of driving up to the court in the SRAM van, and SRAM on our jerseys, and that hit me pretty hard. I never had even considered that an option or a route at the time. I had to step back, and I took ten seconds to kind of picture it and gather my thoughts.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nDillman eventually threw out a number: $30,000. Zimberoff, he recalls, &amp;amp;#x201C;put the ball in my court to prove it. Show me the numbers. Why does it make sense? What&amp;amp;#x2019;s my exposure? What&amp;amp;#x2019;s the calendar? What are you going to use this money for?&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;That was a bit of a wakeup call &amp;amp;#x2013; an awakening that something like that is potentially a possibility down the road.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nFor now though, there&amp;amp;#x2019;s still the tiny matter of becoming the best bike polo team in the world.\n\n\n\n2013&amp;amp;#x2019;s World Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships take place in Weston, Fla., a fastidiously manicured and abusively muggy city of 65,000 near Fort Lauderdale. The tournament&amp;amp;#x2019;s entrance is lined with sponsors, which range from polo-specific (a Swiss company called Milk, which specializes in mallets), to bicycle-focused (Bern Helmets, along with Republic Bike, the company that makes Google&amp;amp;#x2019;s employee bikes), to general (Dunkin&amp;amp;#x2019; Donuts, the YMCA), to outright puzzling (Wayman Aviation, a nearby flight training school). By 10 a.m., the temperature has climbed to 91 degrees, and the humidity is just shy of 70 percent.\n\nAgainst such a prim background, the hundreds of polo players here look somewhat out of place. They meander around in cutoff jeans and tank tops, smoking spliffs and high-fiving. Faces are overwhelmingly bearded. Legs, in general, are uncannily thick and collaged with tattoos, bruises and open wounds. A quick survey of the tournament bracket reveals a creative and at times lewd diversity of team names: there&amp;amp;#x2019;s &amp;amp;#x201C;Mucko,&amp;amp;#x201D; &amp;amp;#x201C;Bad Fingers,&amp;amp;#x201D; &amp;amp;#x201C;Bitchy Resting Face&amp;amp;#x201D; and &amp;amp;#x201C;Not a Single Fuck Was Given.&amp;amp;#x201D; &amp;amp;#x201C;The Journeymen&amp;amp;#x201D; will shortly face &amp;amp;#x201C;The Power Rangers,&amp;amp;#x201D; &amp;amp;#x201C;Getting Wild&amp;amp;#x201D; will take on &amp;amp;#x201C;Nasty Boys,&amp;amp;#x201D; and &amp;amp;#x201C;Four Fried Chickens and a Coke&amp;amp;#x201D; is, at the moment, matched up against &amp;amp;#x201C;Pterotriclopsorousdactyl Rex.&amp;amp;#x201D; All told, there are 64 teams here and 14 countries represented.\n\nThe Beavers arrive more than an hour early to survey their surroundings and stretch. They greet a few fellow players with fist bumps, then go about setting up their camp &amp;amp;#x2013; a large party tent with a with a cooler of ice water, bottles of Gatorade and mountains of health food snacks arranged under it. Dillman immediately strips down to just a pair of compression shorts. He unfolds a giant American flag and strings it between two of the tent&amp;amp;#x2019;s legs for shade, then flops into a lawn chair.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;Where the fuck do you think we are?&amp;amp;#x201D; he says, pointing at the flag.\n\nAt around 10:45, The Beavers begin preparing for their first match. Thanks to their win over The Guardians at North Americans, they&amp;amp;#x2019;re seeded high here &amp;amp;#x2013; just below 2012&amp;amp;#x2019;s world champions, a Parisian squad called Call Me Daddy. This means that their first couple games will be against very low-ranking teams; barring some unforeseen catastrophe, these will essentially serve as warm-ups.\n\nMoments before heading to the court, Dillman does a few jumping jacks, Kremin pours ice water over his head, and Halvorsen scarfs a Pop-Tart.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;Keep it cool,&amp;amp;#x201D; Dillman instructs as the ref counts down. &amp;amp;#x201C;Smoke a cigarette when you get the ball. Use the walls.&amp;amp;#x201D; Joey nods; Kremin glowers loathsomely at the opposing team. &amp;amp;#x201C;Keep it chill,&amp;amp;#x201D; Dillman says. &amp;amp;#x201C;Five-oh. Let&amp;amp;#x2019;s go.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nHere&amp;amp;#x2019;s where another fact about world-class competitive hardcourt bike polo might be useful: it&amp;amp;#x2019;s one thing to watch it on a computer screen, or even in the sort of jerky, warp-speed pickup matches The Beavers play against their fellow San Francisco team, The Control. It is something else entirely to see the sport up close and in high gear. Everything is impossibly fast and fluid, and the precision with which players handle the ball &amp;amp;#x2013; all the little jukes and flicks and scoops &amp;amp;#x2013; seems like some goofy, delightful magic trick. Participants crunch each other against the boards at one moment, then pivot in balletic swoops the next. Penalties are common, but not as common as you&amp;amp;#x2019;d think. They include &amp;amp;#x201C;dabbing&amp;amp;#x201D; (touching a foot to the ground), &amp;amp;#x201C;shuffling&amp;amp;#x201D; (scoring a goal with any part of a mallet aside from the flat end), and &amp;amp;#x201C;dolphin slapping&amp;amp;#x201D; (slamming a wheel into another player&amp;amp;#x2019;s bike to obstruct his movement).\n\nA typical Beavers offensive goes something like this: all three players whip out from behind their goal, with Dillman riding point. He barrels up center court and blocks the nearest defender&amp;amp;#x2019;s bike with his own. Halvorsen, usually close behind, looks for an opening, then cuts instantaneously to his right or left. Depending on how much obstructing Dillman can manage, Halvorsen will plunge toward the goal, rip a shot from farther out, or pass the ball back to Kremin, who&amp;amp;#x2019;s camped out on defense. The speed at which this all takes place varies: The Beavers can be fast when they need to be, but mostly they&amp;amp;#x2019;re torturers. They cede nothing and seize every opportunity. They jab and prod, patiently and emotionlessly, until their opponents start melting down. Then they push harder. \n\nHalvorsen scores after just 26 seconds, then again at 1:11, then again around the six-minute mark. It&amp;amp;#x2019;s the best their opponents can do to crowd their own goal as The Beavers circle and strike like pissed-off hornets. Dillman completes the shutout before 10 minutes have elapsed, and The Beavers immediately ride back to their tent to wolf snacks and strategize.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;It was more energy than we should have used,&amp;amp;#x201D; Dillman says, unwrapping a Cliff Bar. &amp;amp;#x201C;But we won, five-zero. That&amp;amp;#x2019;s all that matters. Worked a little too hard, got the result.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nThe rest of the first day and most of the second proceed in much the same way. The Beavers win their jousts, spend a minute or so scrutinizing their opponents, then proceed to pick them apart, methodically and unrelentingly. When other teams rely too much on speed, The Beavers entrap and capitalize; when they try to hoard the ball, Kremin and Dillman pin them on the boards and pry it away. The overall experience is a bit like watching a bored lion meander across the savannah, yawning and gobbling up partially blind fauns. \n\nThe one exception is a match against Call Me Daddy, who The Beavers face early on the tournament&amp;amp;#x2019;s second day. In between games, I had seen Call Me Daddy lurking on the shaded bleachers, sucking on electronic cigarettes and muttering things to the other French teams. On the court, they&amp;amp;#x2019;re steely-eyed and cagey &amp;amp;#x2013; and, like The Beavers, they&amp;amp;#x2019;re a team of specialists: one strong defenseman, one speedy finisher and one bruiser with a daunting wingspan. All three wear face masks, which many American players tell me is a distinctly Euro-move: an attempt to protect their fragile, French faces. There&amp;amp;#x2019;s absolutely no available science to back this up.\n\nThe game begins. Halvorsen scores first, dipping inside a defender and exploiting an empty net. A few minutes later, he scores again off a quick pass from Dillman. Then, once more, on his own. But just when The Beavers begin to relax, Call Me Daddy charges back. They score two quick goals, then tie the game at three with only a couple minutes left to play. Halvorsen puts the Beavers up 4-3 at the 11-minute mark, but Call Me Daddy answers less than 20 seconds later. With just 10 seconds left, Dillman swerves across the court, fires a shot and misses. The game ends in a tie. This result is in some ways a blessing for both teams: if either one had lost, they would have been bumped down to a lower bracket and been forced to play several more games for a shot at the finals. Instead, The Beavers and Call Me Daddy are now tied for first place.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;We should have burned the clock when we were up,&amp;amp;#x201D; Kremin says back at the tent.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;Whatever,&amp;amp;#x201D; Dillman replies. &amp;amp;#x201C;On to the next one.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;They have a lot of little dirty tricks,&amp;amp;#x201D; Kremin continues. &amp;amp;#x201C;They know exactly what they&amp;amp;#x2019;re doing to get you to tap out.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nHe sits down on the cooler. &amp;amp;#x201C;I want to crawl inside this thing.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\n\n\nThe tournament&amp;amp;#x2019;s third and final day is mercilessly hot, which presents a slew of unforeseen technical challenges to players: bike tires swell and pop with a series of startling thwacks, and the plastic game balls grow soft and slow as Silly Putty in the heat. Next to each ref is a bucket of ice with spare balls, which are switched out every few minutes. The opportunity for prurient innuendo slips by absolutely no one here, and a small ceremony of shouts (&amp;amp;#x201C;Ice your balls!&amp;amp;#x201D; or &amp;amp;#x201C;Get your balls harder!&amp;amp;#x201D; or &amp;amp;#x201C;Let me touch your frigid balls!&amp;amp;#x201D; etc.) accompanies every substitution.\n\nAt about 8 p.m., a rainstorm cracks open the Florida sky and delays play for two hours. Some players huddle in their tents; others, whose teams were eliminated early on, go streaking. In what turns out to be a cruel twist of competitive protocol, games grow longer and are spaced closer and closer together as fewer squads remain. Such factors are advantageous to the well-conditioned Beavers, who tend to thrive late in competition. They&amp;amp;#x2019;ve played nearly 20 games since arriving in Florida.\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;You see these guys who eat frozen pizza and smoke joints all the time,&amp;amp;#x201D; Dillman says. &amp;amp;#x201C;They&amp;amp;#x2019;re just huffing and puffing. We just keep on going. We could do it again another time.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nThe Beavers have remained undefeated since their tie against Call Me Daddy on day two. Despite a couple of close calls today &amp;amp;#x2013; first against a Swiss team called Wolfgang, then later against a speedy Seattle trio called The Assassins &amp;amp;#x2013; they&amp;amp;#x2019;ve clinched a spot in the tournament final against Call Me Daddy, who themselves have lost just once since they tied The Beavers.\n\nOnce the rain lets up, a few players run across the court with squeegees. Somebody tosses a bouncy ball to a dachshund while the crowd cheers and shouts &amp;amp;#x201C;MVP! MVP!&amp;amp;#x201D; Someone else prances around the court in a leotard and a fake horse head. The Beavers remain under their tent, strategizing, oblivious to all of this.\n\nThe final begins at 10:48 p.m. The moon is full, and hangs low, and is the sallow orange of an egg yolk or a bloodshot eye. The tournament&amp;amp;#x2019;s 400 or so attendees crowd around the court as the two teams ride on and begin warming up. Perhaps because there&amp;amp;#x2019;s an international title at stake, Americans who had earlier heckled The Beavers for milking the clock (&amp;amp;#x201C;BEA-vers are BOR-ing!&amp;amp;#x201D; thwack, thwack, thwack-thwack-thwack!) have settled nicely into their most basic, jingoistic impulses. The chants, though the same tempo and tune, have changed to &amp;amp;#x201C;Let&amp;amp;#x2019;s Go BEA-vers!&amp;amp;#x201D; or &amp;amp;#x201C;Call Your DAD-dies!&amp;amp;#x201D; Meanwhile, the Europeans &amp;amp;#x2013; British, Swiss, French &amp;amp;#x2013; are all cheering in French. Both teams circle their goals, hammering shots and awaiting the joust.\n\nIn this pre-championship moment, while crammed between players from Mexico and London who scream and holler and curse, it&amp;amp;#x2019;s hard to not feel as though you are at the tiny, throbbing epicenter of something important. In this scrupulously trimmed park in this wealthy, marshy suburb at the very southernmost tip of the United States, it is hard to look at The Beavers and not think that they are perhaps the best shot this peculiar, beautiful sport has. It is, furthermore, impossible to claim that their competitive hunger is somehow less poignant or relevant than that of a world-class pitcher or point guard or sprinter.\n\nFinally, it&amp;amp;#x2019;s hard to not wonder if The Beavers, who have given so much of themselves for so long in exchange for so little, are the closest thing to &amp;amp;#x201C;stars&amp;amp;#x201D; bike polo might ever produce. There&amp;amp;#x2019;s no doubt that&amp;amp;#x2019;s what they&amp;amp;#x2019;re here for. They want the glittering spoils afforded to other world-class athletes. The medals, the sponsorship deals, the boasting privileges. They want to be the best in the world at a sport that the world itself doesn&amp;amp;#x2019;t quite fully understand.\n\nSo they play.\n\n\n\nA final note about returning home, dehydrated and sun-beaten, world bike polo champions, to your craggy basketball court in San Francisco&amp;amp;#x2019;s Mission district: nothing really changes. You still have to prop up the court&amp;amp;#x2019;s wall, which is actually just a tennis net, with an ornate tangle of nylon straps. You still have to conceal your tallboy in a discarded Funyuns wrapper, lest the city&amp;amp;#x2019;s police take notice. You must still thread your mallet through the chain link fence and wait until it&amp;amp;#x2019;s pulled out and thrown onto the court before it&amp;amp;#x2019;s your turn to play. You do not have a lucrative sponsorship deal with SRAM, or a new car, or even the economic capacity to quit your job at the shoe store or the bike shop.\n\nA few weeks after the tournament&amp;amp;#x2019;s conclusion &amp;amp;#x2013; after The Beavers trounced Call Me Daddy, 5-1; after Kremin launched the final, full-court shot that caught the Parisians off-guard; after the team sprinted around the court&amp;amp;#x2019;s perimeter, slapping hands and embracing their countrymen &amp;amp;#x2013; The Beavers are together again, playing pickup. It&amp;amp;#x2019;s just about the closest that San Francisco gets to actual winter, and everyone&amp;amp;#x2019;s wearing beanies, long pants and sweatshirts. As Halvorsen flies around the court with a couple members of The Control, Dillman and Kremin lean against the chain-link fence and dodge errant shots. I ask how they think of themselves in terms of polo&amp;amp;#x2019;s larger history. What do they hope people say about them when they&amp;amp;#x2019;re reflecting on bike polo &amp;amp;#x2013; either in awe or in perpled curiosity &amp;amp;#x2013; 20 years from now?\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;I hope people look back and are like, &amp;amp;#x2018;This was one of the first teams that was actually doing strategic things, and not just like going out to fucking get drunk and smoke weed,&amp;amp;#x2019; &amp;amp;#x201D; Kremin says. &amp;amp;#x201C;We took it hella serious from the get-go. Everyone else was too, but we were thinking of how to watch the game and dissect it.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\n&amp;amp;#x201C;We were the first team to show up in 2010 in Berlin with matching helmets and jerseys and a strategy,&amp;amp;#x201D; Dillman says. &amp;amp;#x201C;We brought this sport mentality to the game. We were seen as the all-American boys, coming to Europe and pounding chests and slapping hands &amp;amp;#x2013; things they didn&amp;amp;#x2019;t think would infiltrate polo.&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nI take a moment to properly word a question about what&amp;amp;#x2019;s next &amp;amp;#x2013; how long they think they can keep up, physically, emotionally, financially &amp;amp;#x2013; as the game keeps growing and changing? How long can they stay the best in the world before another faster, smarter team charges in? How long will it all matter to them?\n\nBut they&amp;amp;#x2019;re already on the court, zipping around, grinning and shoving like little boys, trying their absolute damndest to win.\n\nByard Duncan is a  GQ contributor."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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