| Highest governing body | none |
|---|---|
| Clubs | none |
| Characteristics | |
| Contact | Full |
| Team members | ~20 |
| Mixed-sex | No |
| Type | Team sport |
| Equipment | Camman Crick |
| Presence | |
| Country or region | Isle of Man |
| Olympic | No |
Cammag (Manx pronunciation: [ˈkʰamaɡ])[1] is a team sport originating on the Isle of Man. It is closely related to the Scottish game of shinty and the Irish game of hurling. Once the most widespread sport on Mann, it ceased to be played in the early twentieth century after the introduction of association football and is no longer widely-played.[2]
Equipment included a stick (Manx: camman, meaning "little curved thing"[2]) and a ball (crick or crig) with anything up to 200 players. Sometimes whole towns and villages took part, or even played each other. The camman was similar in design to the caman in shinty, both having no blade unlike the Irish camán. A gorse wood camman, if of suitable size and shape, was a very much treasured possession. The crick can be made from cork or wood, and varied from circular to egg-shaped, sized from approximately two inches in circumference to 'the size of a fist'. Old accounts tell that the crick was sometimes covered in cloth or leather.[3]
Cammag season started on 26 December (St. Stephen's Day/ Hunt the Wren Day) and was only played by men (of all ages) during the winter. In modern times, an annual match of cammag is played in St John's on 26 December in keeping with this tradition.[4]