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The sports landscape of Cuthland-Waldrich is dominated by the nation's affinity to ice hockey, which was developed in northern Cuthland during the 19th century and is widely considered to be the nation's national sport. A 2012 poll held by the Sportswriters Association of Cuthland-Waldrich found that ice hockey was the preferred sport of 45% of the population, making it the most popular sport in the country. The Ice Hockey Association of Cuthland-Waldrich (IHACW), founded in 1890, serves as the sport's highest governing body and the oldest such ice hockey organization in the world. The IHACW operates the Cutho-Waldish ice hockey league system, which organizes every internationally sanctioned division of professional ice hockey in Cuthland-Waldrich under a system of promotion and relegation. The National Division, the highest division of ice hockey in the country, is the most widely viewed and attended sports league in Cuthland-Waldrich and the Xth most valuable in the world. Internationally, the Cutho-Waldish men's national ice hockey team has won the International Ice Hockey Championships (IIHC) nine times and taken home five gold medals at the Auroran Games, most recently in 2018.
Other popular team sports in Cuthland-Waldrich include association football, rugby, and cricket. Football is significantly more popular in Waldrich than in Cuthland, and two of the nation's Waldish-based clubs, FC Grienfjild and Meerboarg Sport, are among the top clubs in the world. The Cutho-Waldish men's national football team has also seen periodic success internationally, most notably winning the 1974 Auroran Cup. Rugby and cricket, by contrast, are predominately Cuthish sports, seeing their greatest popularity among the upper classes in major cities such as Kingsham, Alderport, and Whitford. Rugby is particularly popular in communities along the coast of Lake Sigismund, in some areas surpassing ice hockey in popularity. Alderport Rugby is the most successful rugby club in the nation, having won the RFCW First Division, the highest level of professional rugby competition in Cuthland-Waldrich, seventeen times. Cricket has declined significantly in prominence in recent years, and is now the fourth most popular team sport in the nation despite once rivaling ice hockey in popularity. Nevertheless, Cuthland-Waldrich remains a major hub for the sport, with the Cutho-Waldish men's national cricket team winning the World ODI Cricket Championships twice in 1987 and 2003.
In individual sports, golf maintains the strongest following nationwide. The Royal Ashbury Golf Club, built in 1790, is among the oldest golf courses in the world, and is the site of the prestigious Ashbury Classic golf tournament. Other notable golf courses in Cuthland-Waldrich include the Prestford Manor Golf Club, Hatchbury Golf Club, and the Royal South Bexford Golf Club. Tennis, skiing, squash, swimming, fencing, and martial arts are also popular individual sports in Cuthland-Waldrich.
Cuthland-Waldrich has historically been successful at the Auroran Games. The nation ranks third all time in medals with a total of 860, of which 223 have come at the Winter Games and 637 at the Summer Games. The nation and its predecessor states have hosted the Games five times: the 1904 and 1996 Summer Games, as well as the 1934, 1950, and 2006 Winter Games.
History of Cuthland-Waldrich
- Pre-6th century: Tribes and stuff from prehistory until circa 6th century
- 6th century: Various petty kingdoms, duchies, etc. emerge and dominate throughout early medieval period
- 6th-11th centuries: But oh no, they keep getting fucked by Mascylla from the east and the Nordics from the west
- 11th century: Probably better if we unite into two kingdoms instead, Cuthland and Waldrich
- 15th century: Yeah this is pretty cool but Masc keeps fucking us so let's form a political union and totally not rip off Poland-Lithuania in the process
- 15th-17th centuries: Wow I like this whole empire thing let's go invade not!Scandinavia and maybe parts of Mascylla as well
- We should also be artsy and shit while we're at it
- 17th century: Oh never mind this is actually completely unsustainable, ethnic tensions are sucky and our economy is in the shitter
- Guess we better partition the G L O R I O U S E M P I R E and return to getting railed by Mascylla
- 1818: Lol jk we're getting the band back together
- 19th century: Oh look, industry and colonies
- Oh awesome now Dulebia wants in, maybe we can challenge Lavarian/Mascyllary dominance and in no way collapse spectacularly in the process
- Great War: Oh wow that was shockingly predictable guess we suck again
- 1920s: Yep we definitely suck, Masc took our monarchy and now the commies want in
- 1930s: But what better cure for communism than a return of the monarchy, this time with double the oppression
- 1930s: Guess we should invade/annex Waldrich again, as is customary
- 1930s-1970s: Oh wow this is much better than before, we're actually kind of feared
- 1970s: Whoops maybe economics aren't our thing, the people are restless again
- Okay we'll give you more capitalism but the monarchy stays
- 1980s-2000s: Mmm yes the sweet taste of cold hard cash
- 2000s-present: Wow we're actually developed as fuck for once