"WhirlyBall" comes to Maple Grove It's a sport that will make you scratch your head at first. "Extreme bumper cars is what I would call it," said Beth Leith. Combine bumper cars with a bit of lacrosse and basketball and there you have WhirlyBall. "On a scale of 1--10, it's about an 11, everyone had a really great time," said Beth Leith, who played the game when she accompanied a Habitat for Humanity Youth Group on a trip to Chicago. "I took a lot of pictures and looking back through those, there's smiles on everybody's face. It's a competitive sport, but really it's just fun." Little did she know a few years after the trip, her husband -- council member Phil Leith -- would be voting to bring the sport to Maple Grove. "It's exciting," said Phil Leith. "It's new to Maple Grove and new to state of Minnesota and brings redevelopment to that area." Monday night the Maple Grove City Council approved the site plan for WhirlyBall to go into the Mann Theatre building. The space will ! include a laser tag area, a sports bar, and two whirlyball arenas. Owner Nick Lambrecht thinks the sport will draw people in. "It's something that the first time you hear about it you scratch your head and furrow your brow and kinda wonder and it sounds strange. That's a common reaction, but another reaction is people have an absolute blast when they play it," said Lambrecht. The facility will also have four meeting rooms and offer corporate packages for businesses to work on team building ...
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