The Pillow Fight League (PFL) is a Toronto-based semi-professional sports league centered around public pillow fights. The tongue in cheek women's sport is hosted in a fighting arena, much like a boxing or wrestling match. The League was founded by PFL Commissioner Stacey P. Case, and Honorary PFL Commissioner Craig Daniels in February 2004. The formal league launched at a Canadian goth bar called The Vatikan in downtown Toronto. Events since then have been hosted in both Montreal, Quebec and New York City, but the primary seat of the League remains in Toronto, Ontario. Fighter Abbie Roadkill, originally of British descent, recently speculated about a similar event in the United Kingdom.
Fights within the League now feature either two or three girls, the latter referred to as a damage à trois, and a codified set of rules. Fighters frequently incur cuts, scrapes and bruises. There have also been more serious injuries, including concussions, black eyes, lost teeth, split lips, torn muscles, and bruised kidneys.
The League grew out of a pair of live events held by performers from Canadian burlesque troupe “Skin Tight Outta Sight” at a performance of Mr. Case's band (named for tijuana bibles) at New Year's Eve 2004 and 2005. The latter featured the first instance of live tryouts for members of the audience. The events that followed in 2006 at the Vatikan launched the new League-sponsored series of events primarily focused around the pillow fighting bouts. A potential moneymaker for its founders, the League saw television rights snapped up in 2007 by reality television and sitcom producers Eddie October (executive producer of Tommy Lee Goes to College and The Roseanne Show) and Al Berman (executive producer of The Biggest Loser and Survivor).
Famous quotes containing the words pillow, fight and/or league:
“Weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
Finds the down pillow hard.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Women, because of their colonial relationship to men, have to fight for their own independence. This fight for our own independence will lead to the growth and development of the revolutionary movement in this country. Only the independent woman can be truly effective in the larger revolutionary struggle.”
—Women’s Liberation Workshop, Students for a Democratic Society, Radical political/social activist organization. “Liberation of Women,” in New Left Notes (July 10, 1967)
“We’re the victims of a disease called social prejudice, my child. These dear ladies of the law and order league are scouring out the dregs of the town. C’mon be a glorified wreck like me.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)