9-man

9-man (also nine-man, nineman, 9man) is a team sport with some characteristics of volleyball utilizing nine players per side and a slightly larger court (10 by 20 meters). Historically, the sport was played by Chinese immigrants to the US, who predominantly hailed from Toisan (Taishan) city in Guangdong province of China. In the late 1930s the sport was used as a means to socially connect the laborers in Chinatowns across the United States. Teams from Boston and Providence, RI held the first organized nine-man tournament in 1938 which later spread to Chinatowns in other large US and Canadian cities. The North American version of 9-Man continues to grow today with a popular rotating tournament called the NACIVT uniting thousands of players and spectators each September over Labor Day weekend. It is unclear whether the sport was also played in the Asian Games in 1958 and in 1962 held in Tokyo and Jakarta, respectively, or if they were simply playing volleyball with nine players. The sport has not made a reappearance in the Asian Games since, and many believe that the rules of nine-man are exclusive to the community that plays in North America. The sport is the subject of an award-winning documentary called 9-Man that was completed in 2014 and had its world premiere at IFFBoston on April 27, 2014 at 1pm. The film was broadcast on the PBS World Channel series America ReFramed on May 5, 2015.

NACIVT rules stipulate that at any given time, each team must have at least six players of "100 percent" Chinese descent on the court. The remaining three players must be of Asian descent; the NACIVT explicitly states who qualifies as Asian based on the country of origin of his ancestors - (Asian: origins from: Myanmar (formerly Burma), Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam). In addition, only men are allowed to play 9-man.

There are a number of ways in which 9-man rules differ from traditional Volleyball rules. As only men can play 9-man, during international tournaments, such as the NACIVT, women play by six-player Volleyball rules.

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