CrokinoleCentre

Yes, my friends, not only is the hour yours, so is this 2024 (plus a bit) crokinole year in review blog.

Like any quote torn from its context it’s quite flexible in the meaning one can draw from it. Its application to a desired justification is as malleable as double-bubble gum. And its meaning, at this moment, is to inspire a look back at 2024.

Now you are probably thinking, "shouldn’t this have been posted months ago?" My answer to you: I am, bravely of course, unencumbered by the passage of time. I am pushing the boundaries of not only calendar recognition, but also the norms of timing year in review analysis. Why should I let a simple thing like the adoption of the Gregorian calendar a mere not even 500 years ago, or the orbiting of the earth stop me from executing a good idea I had months ago?

I used to check twitter at least weekly for some sort of crokinole content and engage with it in some way in an effort to building some more online activity. I did this for probably a decade, and like my recession from crokinole videos, I eventually came to stop. When reports came out months ago that twitter was removing old content I went spelunking trying to remember some of the humourous moments in the past.

Being at the ripe age to have been at the right age for social media’s introduction into everyday human life I observed with twitter the same life cycle you can find on any other platform that had its day in the sun. In the era before the social media platform gets algorithmically spliced into fragments that turns its user-experience into a jaded daily high school-reunion for anyone who doesn’t have anything better to do, there is a period where the platform is fun to be on. For a time the platform can be unpredictable in a good-natured way that encourages a sense of adventure and discovery.

Looking for crokinole occurrences on twitter back in the good days was like looking for bald eagles in Ontario today; quite rare, but usually amazing when it was spotted. I had a pretty fun time looking back through a treasure trove of unusual spottings, so now I shall share this pleasure with anyone still perusing this particular platform that is well past its best days.

Unmerited and Self-Indulgent Prelude

When I started to write this blog 12 years ago I made a resolute but unconscious decision to either exclude any first-person identifiers (I, me, my) from the entirety of a piece, or to make it clear to the reader I was putting myself front and centre into the argument presented. This was a behaviour, along with many others, I mimicked from the political journalists and sports reporters I enjoyed reading, each of whom share the same respect for the mutually exclusive worlds of stories in which their presence is either relied upon heavily, or completely unnecessary.

With good reason, there’s a compulsion to put that aside today.

The World Crokinole Championship (WCC) Committee has decided to revise the playoff format used at the WCC tournament, and has come up with two proposals for the singles competition. The WCC Committee is seeking player input to help make the decision on which of the two proposals should be implemented for the 2024 edition of the tournament.

The descriptions of the proposals are outlined below. Players wishing to share their opinions on the matter should do so by January 10th, by submitting an email to crokinolecentre@gmail.com.

Objective

2023 was crokinole’s first full year back from the covid-pause. I was thinking back on the year and being impressed by the breadth of it all. If you make a small-time hobby out of relaying crokinole stories, there was too much in the last 12 months to stay on top of it all. So in lieu of a professional job, here’s a non-definitive, non-comprehensive, (possibly non-good grammatical) recap of 2023.

There was lots of news regarding the National Crokinole Association early in the year. New tournaments started up in Elmira and Chatham, and the NCA went through a formalization process to enact a set of by-laws and elect an inaugural board of directors.

Elmira saw Ron Langill record his best-ever finish in a singles event, placing 2nd, but his break-through performance was overshadowed with a titanic clash in the other semifinal. Connor Reinman and Justin Slater squared off on the board, but also in the minds of all competitive crokinole players who were wondering which of the two was currently the best player in the game. Reinman won the semifinal match and the tournament, pushing such perceptions in his favour.

The last shot in crokinole, aka the hammer, it’s an advantage right? Certainly! We all know that and it’s perhaps the first bit of strategy any competitive player knows; if it’s all tied up and you’ve got the hammer, you are probably in a position to win.

But how important is it to have the hammer? For a while I’ve thought the advantage of hammer between two equally skilled players was around 60-40. (That is, against an equal opponent the player with hammer would win a single round 60% of the time.) This wasn’t based on any analysis, just a feeling really, and I had a feeling the hammer advantage for doubles play was slightly higher, maybe 65%.

Such an advantage for the hammer, if those percentages were accurate, is significant so it’s a good thing crokinole games are typically four rounds so that such an advantage is nullified. There is of course one exception, which is elimination matches where a tie is not an acceptable result.