Quidditch doesn't exist. But you can try shinty.

The most intense sport you've never heard of is played in — where else? — Scotland.

Ginanne BrownellJuly 22, 2009 11:48Updated May 30, 2010 12:00

Two of shinty's biggest rivals, Kingussie and Newtonmore, faced off in the June 2009 MacTavish Cup. (David Seoras)

INVERNESS, Scotland — As the last strains of the bagpipes fades across the pitch, two of the greatest shinty teams in history run onto the field primed and ready for battle.

Played with sticks that resemble a cross between a hockey stick and a golf club, the match takes off at a fast and furious pace with the ball whipping through the air. Sticks slap, players ram into each other. Ronald Ross, arguably the best shinty player the game has ever seen, expertly dodges across the pitch and smashes the baseball-sized ball passed the goalie. With that, the crowd of 700 goes wild.

Shinty — or camanachd in Scottish Gaelic — is believed to have been brought over from Ireland by the Gaels about 2,000 years ago and experts believe the game has changed little since then.

If you were to take a sixth-century Irishman and put him on a shinty pitch today he would be able to identify the game,” said Roger Hutchinson, author of “Camanachd: The Story of Shinty.”

Shinty tends to be a pretty rough sport and popular myth is that during the height of clan dominance, chieftains would have their soldiers play games of shinty before going into battle because it was considered the closest thing to warfare without anyone getting killed.

Hutchinson dismisses that story, but there is no doubt that shinty has played an important role in the history of the Highlands. The game was traditionally played in the winter months (the season now runs from March until October) with New Year’s Day bringing whole villages would out for matches.

“It is really an important part of the culture and heritage here,” Ross said. “Just like in football [soccer], if you are brought up with a team, you follow them so it can be intense, clannish and quite competitive.”

That explains the rivalry between Kingussie and Newtonmore, from villages just three miles apart, that has roiled since Kingussie won the first-ever Camanachd Cup (the World Series for shinty) in 1896. The rivalry may not be as well known as that of the Yankees and the Red Sox, but it is every bit as historic and fierce.