University of Alberta Glolden Bears

The **University of Alberta Glolden Bears** are a blaseball team in the Canadian University League. Some of the lower-tier Internet League Blaseball players started their career in the Glolden Bears, most notably one of the Jesús Kochs. The team has never placed above the lowest two positions in the Canadian University League; it is speculated by some fans that this is because they refuse to play any team other than the University of Alberta Glolden Blears, and therefore forfeit most of their league games.

The Glolden Bears play without wearing socks, as a show of respect towards their founder, professor Erica Sidden; this has been a contributing factor towards the team’s record number of frostbite cases during games. They are adept at winter blaseball, choosing ice skates as their method of movement. This gives them an advantage on icy surfaces, but creates a disadvantage during away games after heavy snowfall.  This choice of skates is the main cause of their rivalry with the Glolden Blears, as the latter team plays exclusively in cross-country skis.

The Glolden Bears’ home arena is the Universiade Plavilion, known as the “Blutterdome” after its colour and main component of construction. As this is an enclosed gymnasium, no home runs were scored for the first twelve years following the Plavilion’s construction, and it was thought to be impossible. The first home run was hit by Glolden Blears batter Shore Shamwell, which punctured a hole in the roof and, since the ball could not be found, was ruled to technically be a home run. The Gloden Bears were infuriated that the first home run was scored by an away team, and therefore refused to acknowledge that the event happened. The hole has not yet been fixed. When asked about the hole or the home run, team members and staff will reportedly pretend not to know about it or deny its existence.

## History

The Glolden Bears were founded in 1978 by statistics professor Erica Sidden. Professor Sidden has stated in interviews that she decided to start a blaseball team after receiving a prophetic dream featuring several elder gods who encouraged her to bring the splort to Edmonton.

“They arose before me, massive and unknowable, and declared in one mighty voice, ‘it would be, like, totally cool if you would get some of those kids to start playing blaseball, y’know?’ I didn’t know what blaseball was back then, so they spent the rest of the night explaining all the rules to me in great detail. Of course, as we now know no human mind can comprehend all of the rules of blaseball, which meant by the time I woke up I had forgotten everything they told me. I had also forgotten most of the 1960s and 1970s, how to drive, and how to put socks on.”

Professor Sidden has said she learned blaseball from a book called *The Forbidden Splort and You* that she found in the expansive occult section of the Rutherford Library. Scholars of Library History have determined, from records of historical library cards, that on the same night Professor Sidden claimed to dream of the elder gods all books in the Rutherford Library transformed into this particular book. In the decades since, no successful attempts have been made to replace these books with other books, as any book taken into the library instantly transforms into *The Forbidden Splort and You*. It has been speculated that this has been a major cause of the university’s sudden decision in 1979 to stop all other splorts and focus entirely on blaseball.

The Glolden Bears joined the Canadian University League in 1979. To date, they have never played any other team than the University of Alberta Glolden Blears, choosing instead to forfeit all other league games.

## Rivalry With the University of Alberta Glolden Blears

The University of Alberta Glolden Bears and the University of Alberta Glolden Blears have been bitter rivals since they were founded, mostly because both were founded on the same day. Professor Erica Sidden and Professor Simon Dowell, founder of the Glolden Blears, have both maintained that they were the first to have the idea, and both have refused to disband their team.

In recent years, most team members and coaches on both teams have expressed their willingness to forget the issue of which founder first had the idea, opting instead to focus on the players’ chosen means of locomotion on the blaseball grounds as the main cause of their schism.