The Comprehensive Quidditch Statistics Compendium

by Gavin Byrnes

NOTE: In classic "That dude is irresponsible" form, I left my notebook containing my NHL Draft notes on a bus. It also got contaminated by sand and leaking mixed drinks over the weekend. So the Draft Diary ends abruptly at three entries. It wasn't like my writing was getting any neater. We now return to regularly unscheduled programming. About Quidditch.



Quidditch. A game in which three 13-year-old girls, two thirteen-year old boys, an eleven-year-old boy, and exactly one hot talented dude can be considered the favorites in a high school competition (Gryffindor in Harry's first year). A game that is literally defined by a wildly over-important deus ex machina. And, for all that, a brilliant invention that provides some of the more enjoyable moments of the Harry Potter series, particularly Luna's commentary and the wonderful song "Weasley Is Our King."

"WEASLEY WAS BORN IN A BIN, HE ALWAYS LETS THE QUAFFLE IN."

However, one thing that J.K. Rowling leaves us wanting is Quidditch statistics. Sure, we know that Harry Potter is supposed to be a great seeker. But must we just take her word for it? Are Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and Katie Bell actually good chasers or merely placeholders on a team that's dominant in other areas? What of Cormac McLaggen? How did nobody notice that Hufflepuff is apparently amazing?

Obviously, we really don't get to see games in which Gryffindor is not involved, but there's enough statistics here for me to make a random amount of observations. So let's go to it.

1. Gryffindor is always considered the best team, but why do they always lose to Hufflepuff? After Harry's nigh immediate Snitch catch in his first year during the Snape-refereed match against Hufflepuff, Gryffindor never again beats the supposedly hapless hosers of Hufflepuff, losing in "The Dementor Game" (when Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand is broken), the "Ron Lets In 24 Goals in 22 Minutes" Game* (which we'll get to), and the "Cormac McLaggen Game" (when Cormac hits Harry in the face with a bludger).

* I originally had this as the "Weasley Is Our King" Game, which, while "Weasley Is Our King" is presumably sung during that game, is a more appropriate title for the first game of Book 5 than the second.

2. No team ever makes it through a season undefeated.

In Harry's six years at Hogwarts, four Quidditch cups are completed. Gryffindor, of course, wins three of them (Books 3, 5, and 6), but in all cases with a 2-1 record after a loss to Hufflepuff. I suppose that Ravenclaw could have run the table in Sorcerer's Stone, but I kind of like the idea that no team was ever truly dominant.

3. Ron's game against Hufflepuff has to be the worst goalkeeping performance in the history of goalkeeping. We learn that despite Ginny's Snitch catch, the team loses 240-230 and the game takes 22 minutes. Therefore, Ron let in 24 goals in 22 minutes, or one goal every 55 seconds. Quidditch pitches are (according to Wikipedia, which I'm assuming knows it from Quidditch Through The Ages) 500 feet long and 180 feet wide. Even assuming that players can fly pretty fast, and that Hufflepuff dominated possession, that's still a frankly unbelievable level of incompetence. The fact that Ron's "fourteenth failed save" is mentioned suggests that Hufflepuff got bolder and bolder against our favorite streaky goalkeeper and started firing from further and further out.

4. Even though Harry thinks he's a better seeker than Ginny, she loses less often than he does. Harry plays in 9 matches and catches 7 snitches, although to be fair in both losses he misses the Snitch because he was knocked out. Ginny, though, is a seeker in three matches...and wins all of them. She catches the Snitch to win the Cup twice to Harry's once.

5. Games get really high-scoring in later years. In early years, games end quickly without much scoring. We only see Gryffindor's chasers score twice in the entirety of Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets combined, and even in Harry's first game in Order of the Phoenix there are few goals scored. By Half-Blood Prince, however, Gryffindor are winning games by at least 250 points and, of course, the final score of the last match before Harry and Ginny's kiss is Gryffindor 450, Ravenclaw 140.

This leads me to one observation and one question. First, the observation is that Quidditch matches involving Harry Potter must appear within the story, so Rowling doesn't want to clutter up the narrative too much with lots of scoring from other players before Harry catches the Snitch. On the contrary, off-screen Quidditch matches can have as much scoring as Rowling wants, whether it's to enhance the terribleness or excellence of Ron's goalkeeping or to portray the dominance of one team or another. This works anyway though, because it provides further evidence of Harry's excellence as a seeker.

The question then becomes: who is scoring all those goals? Gryffindor's chasers are never truly their strong suit; except for the third book (and the sixth, which we'll get to), they are usually outscored. But all of a sudden, in a game in which the best chaser (Ginny) is forced to play Seeker because of Harry's absence and Dean Thomas is brought up from the reserves to join Katie Bell and Demelza Robins, all hell breaks loose.. Bell is only shown scoring three goals during the books, Demelza only one (and there isn't really a ton of off-screen Gryffindor scoring in books one through five)...and then these Chasers account for 30 goals in Half-Blood Prince's final. Maybe I'm taking this too seriously. Yes, I'm definitely taking this too seriously. But this scoring explosion is bizarre to me.

6. Great trivia question: Of all the goals we actually SEE in the entire Harry Potter series, who scores the most? It's not Angelina Johnson (5). It's not Alicia Spinnet or Katie Bell (3 apiece). It's not even Ginny, who is seen scoring 5 as well. No, the answer is Marcus Flint, who "scores six times without anyone noticing" while Harry's broom is being attacked by Quirrell and scores once more in Prisoner of Azkaban.

7. Fittingly, I'll end on the seventh point, which suggests (bear with me) that Quidditch players normally peak as Fifth Years. To wit:

Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and the Weasley twins all win their first Quidditch Cups as 5th Years in Prisoner of Azkaban. The chasers combine (with Katie Bell, a fourth year at the time) for 8 known goals and at least 8 unseen goals, a big step up from their meager performances in the first two books.

Oliver Wood doesn't win a cup until his seventh year, but he is established as the star of the Gryffindor team as a fifth year. Yes, I will be stretching truths to make my point.

Harry Potter barely plays Quidditch in his later years at Hogwarts, and I suppose you could argue he peaks as a third year. But he catches the Snitch against probably Slytherin's most brutal team yet, and would presumably have played exemplarily had Umbridge not banned him.

Ron Weasley has a bad debut and a legendarily terrible second game (as I already talked about at too much length), but he puts things together in his third game, clinching the Cup as, of course, a fifth year. He's arguably even better when he thinks he's on Felix Felicis in book 6, but his iconic peak moment comes as a fifth-year.

Marcus Flint was technically a sixth year (who apparently gets held back or something) when he first faces Harry, but his status as captain and goal-scoring prowess suggests that he was a strong fifth-year player.

Finally, Ginny Weasley as a fifth year gives what I would submit as the most dominating Quidditch performance of any player in the series. She scores 40 of Gryffindor's first 60 goals in the opening victory over Slytherin (and probably scores more in both that game and the second) and, of course, clinches the Cup with a Snitch-catch in the final game.

So, if you're arguing GOAT for Hogwarts Quidditch players, might be that the discussion doesn't begin and end with Mr. H. Potter. I'd put him third. Marcus Flint's terrible temper and penchant for committing unnecessary penalties loses him the crown, and so my Unofficial Quidditch Most Valuable Player Award goes to Miss Ginevra Weasley (Two seasons, 3 matches at seeker, 3 Snitches caught, 2 matches at chaser, at least 50 goals scored).

24 goals in 22 minutes. That's a game I would have loved to see.