Quidditch Cup

From Harry Potter Wiki

The Quidditch Cup is awarded yearly at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to the House Quidditch team with the most total points. Throughout the 1980s this went to Slytherin more often than not, although Gryffindor are at least putting up a decent fight in the 1990s.

The Championship takes the form of a mini-league, with each house team playing each other house team throughout the course of the year. This results in 3 games for each team, and 6 games of Quidditch for the school to enjoy overall. As there is such a small number of games, each one is eagerly anticipated and usually attended by the entire school, including the teachers. When it comes to Quidditch some of the Professors lose their normal calm demeanour and become more excited about the result than the students. Commentary on each game is provided by Lee Jordan, a task he has carried out since his third year, and possibly before that as well. Lee sprinkles his commentaries with a healthy Gryffindor bias, a shameless admiration for Angelina Johnson, and more than a few swear words at times, not always to the amusement of Professor McGonagall.

The mini-league is created from the results of each game, with the team with the most wins at the top of the pile. In the common event of two or more teams having won the same number of games, league position is decided by “points difference” (ie the number of points scored minus the number of points conceded). The team with the best points difference is placed higher in the league.

Quidditch results are important not only for the pride of winning the Quidditch Cup, but also because there are House Points at stake. It was stated before the Gryffindor vs Hufflepuff match in 1992 that if Gryffindor won they would overtake Slytherin in the House Championship for the first time in 7 years. It’s never made clear how many points are awarded for Quidditch victories, but when Harry is docked 50 points by Professor McGonagall for running round the Astronomy tower at 1:00 in the morning, he worries that he’s lost the lead he gained through his last Quidditch victory. Therefore the points awarded are assumed to be somewhere in the same region.

Oliver Wood, captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team in Harry's early years, always pressures the team to win the cup, and always makes a speech before entering the pitch if they had gone to the final match.