Larkin Hoffman Shareholder Patrick Cole has a broken hurley in his office. A hurley  is a bat-like, wooden stick with a flat end that is used in the game of hurling – one of the national sports of Ireland. How did Cole break the stick? He busted it on another player’s shin during a match.

Cole is an American of Irish descent and has played the sport for years. His wife plays on the local Robert Emmets Hurling and Camogie Club’s championship women’s team; the local women’s teams have won both national and international hurling titles. Cole talked about his hobby recently with Super Lawyers magazine, and he described the sport as “a cross between hockey and murder.”

The broken hurley in Cole’s office used to be his favorite one to use on the pitch. He keeps it in his office because curious people will inevitably pick it up, immediately thinking they’ve broken it. “The way that it broke makes it difficult to tell that it is, in fact, broken. So when people go to pick it up, it surprises them, and they think they broke my favorite stick. It’s a fun prank to play on people.”

Cole has met clients and even eventual colleagues (and business partners) through the sport and said it has a lot of similarities to his legal practice. “Both require a lot of teamwork to be successful. You have to put in the hard work, and you need to have a solid game plan,” Cole said to Super Lawyers.

Click here to read the full article in Super Lawyers Magazine.