This should be taken as a compainion piece to my Rollerball writeup. Rules are noded from memory based on those I could suss out from watching the film. Any improvements, /msg me.
The game is played in a polished wood
velodrome, with 'goals' at either end, consisting of
electromagnets sunk into circular depressions at about head height. The teams consist of somewhere between 8-16 players (hard to tell), kitted out in light body armour and
spiked leather gloves. All players wear rollerskates, except for around five members on each team, who ride scrambler style
motorcycles with bars for skating players to grab to get towed around the 'drome. The steel ball is fired into the arena at incredibly high speed, initially spinning around the edges like a
roulette ball. One player on each team has a large armoured glove-arm for catching the ball. If the ball rolls to the player-pen at the center of the 'drome, or if a goal is scored, the ball is declared dead and another is fired.
After the ball is fired, both teams rush to retrieve it. Once a team has
possession of the ball, they must complete one full circuit of the 'drome in a certain direction (
clockwise for one team,
anti-clockwise for the other) while holding the ball in the air. With a
circuit completed, the ball can be thrown into the opposing team's goal, which is made slightly easier by the electromagnetic properties of the goals.
While one team is trying to do this, the other must get the ball off them. How? Any means possible, basically. While the game does technically contain
fouls, it's hard to tell from watching the film what they actually consist of. Early games feature
punching,
kicking,
checking,
body-tackles and running people over with motorbikes. Later matches include
martial arts,
bludgeoning opponents with the ball and even dragging unconscious players into the path of the ball launching mechanism, killing them instantly when a new steel ball is launched into their faces. It gets very messy.
Under standard rules, games last for a set length of time, with each goal worth one
point. Players have life support monitors built into their armour; if they lose
consciousness or die, a red light goes up on the scoreboard and a
substitute may enter from the pen in the center of the 'drome. Teams have a finite number of subs, and if an entire team is eliminated, the surviving team are declared the
winners.
And the crowd goes wild. Jona-than! Jona-than!