Football, baseball, and soccer have been the “big three” in the world of American sports for years, but around the world, some sports are going off the beaten path—and, in some cases, a little off-the-wall.

Elephant Polo

Where It’s Played: Thailand and other parts of Southern Asia

What’s the Point?: This game is essentially played just like polo, with one very (literally) big difference. Two teams of four elephants, each with two mahouts (that is to say, elephant riders) ride around on elephants on a polo pitch (or field) that is about 3 quarters of the length of a standard polo pitch. The object of the game is to get the small polo ball into the goals at either end of the field using an eight- to nine-foot cane pole. However, it is not always that easy, says Richard Alleyne, science correspondent for the Telegraph magazine in Britain. “When you’ve got an 8-foot-long pole with a tiny little mallet on the end, it’s virtually impossible,” Alleyne has said of trying to hit the ball. “You end up hitting the elephant more times than you do the ball.”

Who Thought Up This Stuff?: Legend has it that a two polo-playing British adventurers, one of whom owned an elephant sanctuary, got very drunk one night and decided it would be a good idea to play polo with elephants. The rest, as they say, is history.

Unicycle Hockey

Where It’s Played: United States, Great Britain, and Germany

What’s the Point?: According to the FAQ at the International Unicycle Hockey homepage, unicycle hockey is very much like other forms of hockey. Under the question “What is unicycle hockey?” the description simply states: “As the name already says, it is hockey played on unicycles. If you would exchange the unicycles for skates, it looks a lot like ice-hockey.”

Who Thought Up This Stuff?: According to a 1960 article in The Bicycle Journal, The Albuquerque Unicycle Club played hockey, but the oldest recorded reference to unicycle hockey comes from a 1925 German silent film called Variete.

Extreme Ironing

Where It’s Played: Great Britain, United States, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. There is also a German league separate from the International one.

What’s the Point?: Extreme ironing is an extreme sport and performance art in which competitors take an ironing board to remote locations (underwater, up a tree, whilst parachuting, etc.) and iron their clothes. The biggest controversy surrounding it is whether it should actually be considered a sport; however, being that there are leagues and that competitors go to almost unbelievable lengths to have the most outrageous location, this article leaves the decision to the reader.

Who Thought Up This Stuff?: Reportedly, extreme ironing was founded in 1997 in Leister, East Midlands, England, by Phil Shaw in his back garden. After coming home from a hard day at work at a knitwear factory, Shaw decided to combine clothing with rock climbing, and extreme ironing was born.