Tsan

Tsan is played only in the Aosta Valley. This traditional game is a bit like baseball and a bit like racket games. A match has two phases, on a very long field, and can last nearly four hours.

The tsan equipment and its patois names

Each object has its own name in patois:

• the tsan, the boxwood ball that gives the game its name;
• the pertse, a sloping stand on which it is placed;
• the baquet, the bat used to strike it;
• the palet, or boquet, a small wooden board to stop the ball;
• the piota, the wooden racket used in the second phase.

First phase: the boun-a and the baquet

A player sets the tsan on the pertse and strikes it with the baquet. Opposite, the other team tries to stop the ball in the air with their palets. A successful strike is called a boun-a.

Second phase: the servia, based on the boun-a won

What comes next depends on the number of boun-a scored. This time an opponent tosses the ball into the air: this is the servia. The player hits it with the piota to send it as far as possible. Here, every metre is worth a point.

A field at least 135 metres long

The field is at least 135 metres long. Lines mark the area where a strike counts, and circles are drawn on the ground for the second phase.

Championships in spring and autumn

About twenty clubs enter some forty teams of twelve players and two substitutes, split into three divisions: A, B and C. A match usually lasts between 3½ and 4 hours. The team with the most points wins, unless the gap is 40 points or fewer, in which case it is a draw.