St. Nicholas tournament
For more than five decades, university sports in the Westphalian city of Münster have been organizing the Nikolausturnier, the largest popular sports event at German universities.
Even with over 2,000 participants and more than ten disciplines, the St. Nicholas tournament has retained its character over the years. In addition to the sporting competition, it's all about having fun in sport.
In 1963 the Nikolausturnier was launched. At that time, a young sports advisor from the former Protestant University of Education, together with the Catholic University of Education in Münster and two other universities in Essen, organized a tournament in which two volleyball and two handball teams competed. Within five decades, the tournament has developed into the largest mass sports tournament at European universities.
Since 2000, an average of 2,000 people in over 200 teams have taken part in the tournament. The competitions take place in almost 40 sports halls on the first Friday and Saturday in December.
Volleyball and handball are still among the particularly popular sports at the St. Nicholas' Tournament. Meanwhile, badminton, basketball, floorball, soccer, futsal, handball, inline hockey, lacrosse, table tennis, ultimate frisbee, dodgeball and volleyball are offered a total of twelve sports. With the growing together of Europe, the group of participants has also changed significantly. In addition to teams from Bielefeld , Gelsenkirchen , Krefeld and Cologne , teams from Tallinn , Paris , Antwerp and Milan regularly take part.