This Super Bowl Sunday, let’s talk about how Star Trek has always found a way to incorporate sports into some of their best moments.
With it being Super Bowl Sunday, we thought it’d be fun to take a look at the times Star Trek dabbled in the world of sports. While not a major factor in the overall series, several shows, namely Voyager and Deep Space Nine, really embraced sports as a concept for their character. Voyager’s Henry Kim was a Veolicty team captain at the academy, and Ben Sisko’s love of baseball was so integral to his character on Deep Space Nine.
So we thought it’d be fun to bring up some fun little moments in Star Trek history that had sports as a key moment to the show.
Here are three fun sports moments in Star Trek.
Baseball on Deep Space Nine
The best parts of Benjamin Sisko aren’t his tactical commanding of the Defiant or his political skills shining in negotiations. No, it’s his every-man relatability. He’s a father, a son, and a lover of baseball. His affinity for the simple things in life is one of the best parts of his character. Whether it’s cooking cajun food with his father, or sharing stories with his best friend, Dax. Yet, the thing that makes him truly awesome is his love of baseball, which we got to see in the Deep Space Nine episode Take Me Out to the Holosuite. Of course, keeping in Star Trek tradition, they had to crank up a baseball game to 11. Sisko and the crew of the DS9 took in Solok and his team of all-Vulcan players. The game goes as well as it can against Vulcans, but it’s still one of the best uses of sports in Star Trek.
Velocity on Voyager
Velicity is the only sport on this list that isn’t real. It combines elements of games like handball, racquetball, skeet shooting, and even some Jai alai, only instead of a ball, it’s a disc and instead of a racquet or a rifle, you use a phaser to return to the disc. This was a key sport on Voyager and was showcased on the season four episode “Hope and Fear”. It showed off the personality issues that Seven of Nine was dealing with as she transitioned back to humanity and helped showcase how great Seven of Nine and Kathryn Janeway were together on screen.
Combat Sports on Voyager
Back to Voyager, but technically not a sport on the show. During the sixth season of Voyager, in the episode of “Tsunkatse”, Voyager dabbled a bit with combat sports on “Tsunkatse”. Granted, in that episode Seven of Nine and Tuvok were abducted and forced to fight, as oppose to real combat sports, where it’s voluntary. That said, the episode did feature one of the greatest combatants in fictionalized combat history, Dwane “The Rock” Johnson, cameoing as Seven of Nine’s rival in the fight.