Crokinole Trick Shots
April 29, 2022NCA Players Championship - June 4th, 2022 http://nationalcrokinoleassociation.com/playerschampionship.htm
Music: Gold Guns Girls by Metri
Crokinole board made by Zsolt Rimar of Hungary
The Story of the 2022 US Open
June 18, 2022Marc Ponzio is a crokinole player and promoter who runs the Brooklyn Crokinole Club. He attended the 2022 US Open Doubles Crokinole Championship and has documented his story below.
Travel
The US Open 2022 and my adventure through this strange uncharted territory started out much like Gilligan’s Island. “A three hour tour.” Well at least it was supposed to be a 3 hour drive up to Voorheesville, NY (right outside Albany). I was lucky enough to get out of work a few hours early that Friday and start the journey. I was particularly excited to compete in my first NCA approved crokinole tournament, and to top it off my good friend David Jefferson was my partner for the event.
There was excitement but also a good amount of nervous energy. Would everyone be really polished-excellent players? Would I be the only novice in attendance? Would I even have a chance? This was all percolating in my head and my stomach for about 3 hours as I sloooooowly battled NYC traffic trying desperately to get out of the city and onto the highway headed north towards Albany.
I had seen pictures from previous events, where there was a rowdy bunch of guys, lots of righteous beards (Chet, Jason, and everyone else - you know who you are) and unfamiliar faces, all gathered together in a basement hall of the American Legion excited to be a part of the best crokinole event on US soil.
I had never competed in an actual NCA approved Crokinole tournament before. Sure I’ve hosted a few small “tournaments”, but they were really just 8-10 people in a room playing crokinole because they love the game. I knew that at least a few of the teams in attendance were, and still are, nationally ranked competitors. Would I be able to keep up? Could I even win? Would I be eliminated? Where was my partner, he was supposed to arrive before me?
The Meet and Greet
I pulled up to the Indian Ladder Farms to find a quaint farmhouse building sitting in a giant field just off a dirt road (probably made by an actual tractor) next to a small paved country road. I parked my car up against a parking line in a dirt lot where many of the other cars were already lazily parked in a row. I walked up to an outdoor seating area indistinguishable from any BBQ ever on US soil. There were loads of strangers hanging around in groups of 3 or 4, plenty of beer and plenty of happy faces. Wooden tables stood outside under the dying sun on a nice hot spring day.
I started to pick out the few faces I recognized, if only from the pictures. First, I saw Ray Beierling, then Jeremy Tracey, I found Jason Molloy and Ron Langill, and then Nick Ozmore just casually walked by. Clearly the who's who of crokinole on the East Coast and several of the better known Canadian players were in attendance.
I locked onto Jason Molloy, our esteemed host. There is something about him. He has an almost boyish charismatic smile that just puts you at ease. He is one of the most genuinely friendly people I’ve met in a long time. You can’t help but feel comfortable around him. It might have been how well he seemed to know everyone, maybe he is just a really nice guy, but he seemed to be effortlessly running the place. He always had a private joke or a funny word for everyone he saw. He brought me into the event with a firm handshake and a few solid introductions. Notably there was Uncle Dwight, Chet Bothke, and at least 2 other guys named Jason other than Jason Molloy himself. He also introduced me to his brother Joshua Molloy (from Extra Pint Texas), Ron Langill and many more. It was a dizzying introduction to people who until that moment existed only on CrokinoleCentre videos for me.
I was still in my work clothes, a button down shirt and pants, that couldn’t have been any less appropriate for the venue. Tracey commented that I “Looked like a doctor!” and we both laughed.
I made the rounds, met many of the people who I had been speaking with online for months but didn’t actually know in person. I finally found my partner who was waylaid by a few last minute errands that took him an hour off course. We settled in and tried to get into a few games. I bought a t-shirt for the US open. We mostly were just taking in the whole experience. It was a pleasant calm, kinda like those moments just before the sunrise. You know you’re in for a treat and somehow there is a bit of magic even before the whole fireworks show starts.
The evening ended with a “hole survivor” competition. By that point, I was so tired from a full day of work, a long drive, and the excitement of meeting everyone, that I decided to spectate for the hole survivor tournament. In reality, I don’t think I could have hit more than 1-2 twenties at that point anyway.
The final table for the hole survivor ended in a competition between Ray Beierling, Jeremy Tracey, and Ron Langil. Ray went on to win the competition which was very well done. Watching players hit upwards of 10 straight 20s on command, round after round, after round was humbling to say the least.
I felt a bit like Rocky next to Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and Ivan Drago… seriously outmatched on all fronts. After a few hopeful and happy goodbyes I ended up finishing off the night by checking into my hotel.
Saturday ... almost
I couldn’t sleep Friday night. I was just too excited at the thought of an entire day of crokinole and it was making my mind turn like the gears of a watch. I knew the majority of it would be the seeding/qualifying tournament with the shorter elimination rounds after. I wanted to get into the Legion early and see the lay of the land. I wanted to meet everyone else I hadn’t met including “Magic” Mike McTague and a few others who I knew would be there. I tried to get up and get in early. But then bacon happened.
Breakfast
It turns out that the Hampton Inn on Western Ave makes bacon as a part of their Saturday morning Breakfast buffet. Let me-rephrase that. They don’t just “make bacon.” They call their most senior bacon chef with the cumulative knowledge of over 40 years of crafting, cutting, seasoning, and selecting the best cuts of bacon to ply his craft. He gets in early, sets up the kitchen, and does nothing else besides make the most perfect bacon you have ever tasted for the entirety of his day.
Well, no not really, but it felt like that. So, entirely too much bacon later ...
The Legion
I arrived at the legion to find a Scout Troop clogging up the driveway? I was so confused.
Just to paint the picture a little… I’m in a strange town, looking for a building I’ve never been to and my GPS is behaving like a snotty 5-year-old child. Despite my GPS not really being helpful, I narrowed it down to 3 buildings which were likely. One of them was the Voorheesville Village Building, which looks very much like a suitable square brick building where a tournament might be held. The other two were the actual Legion building where the events would be held, though I clearly didn’t realize it, and there was a minimally marked police/ambulance building that looked like it might be a good place to hold a tournament.
Anyway, I pulled into the Legion parking lot and it was absolutely packed with cars and there were scores of people dressed something like boy scouts milling around in groups. I thought there was no way I was in the right place… none of them even looked remotely like they were there for Crokinole. After circling the building a few times and frantically texting Jason that I didn’t know where to park I settled on parking next to the police station which looked empty enough that it wouldn’t matter.
It turns out I was more or less right on all counts. The “scouts” were preparing as part of a memorial day event and they were just meeting at the legion. No disrespect to anyone in the armed forces, my father included, but the uniforms and the number of them sorta threw me off. They were gone within 20 minutes however.
So, I got into the legion and the first person I met was “Magic” Mike McTague. He rather sheepishly greeted me and explained that he has been following along in the BCC and enjoyed our videos. Pleasant guy.
Just inside the door we each received a “players package” which included a tumbler with a US Open 2022 logo, a “hammer” token, and a score card/schedule indicating which teams we were playing against for the seeding tournament.
The competitors
The team names require a special note here because they are unique and beyond suggestive. With such entries as the “Hole Bangers”, the “Finger Blasters”, the “Flufflier Unicorns”, the “Pole Dancers”, team “Ron Jeremy”, and our team which was possibly the tamest of all, the “City Flickers”. Next year we will have to up our ante and make something much more…well let’s just say…”more”. I guess when you put a bunch of men and women together in a basement with alcohol, for a competitive tournament you get a little risque. It all adds to the unique flavor of this particular event.
The competitors themselves hail from across the country and over the border into Canada. There were teams from Texas, South Carolina, New York (Brooklyn), New York (Voorheesville), New York (Southern Tier NY - it’s a regionalism), Canada, New Hampshire and I’m sure I’m missing a bunch more. There were a total of 22 teams there to compete. The two Canadian ringer teams included “Protractor and Angles” (Jason and Ray Beierling respectively) and team “Ron Jeremy” consisting of none other than Ron Langill and Jeremy Tracey.
I found my way down to the basement and first set eyes upon the hallowed arena where battle was set to begin shortly. There were 10 tables set up with numbers suspended on small plastic flags hanging from the ceiling centered over each table. Each table had a Tracey board, anything from a traditional to a Grey Rock all with powder and each had a mason jar for collecting 20s.
The mason jars were a unique touch. When you score a 20 and drop it into a regular acrylic 20 holder that rides the rail, the sound is more of a “clunk” as the 20 drops to the bottom. It’s utterly rewarding and music to my ears but, when you drop a disc into a mason jar the sound is more of a refreshing “ting” sound. It resonates, it’s somehow more crisp and musical. It was a fitting celebration to accompany any 20.
As for the rest of the room, there was a bar in the back, one wall lined with raffle merchandise, regular merchandise for purchase, a large printed poster-board bracket (not for use until after the seeding event), and a small table for the Jackpot Games entries. For anyone unfamiliar, the jackpot games are a sort of skill challenge that comes with a small monetary reward. You could buy into any one or all of the challenges and if you perform the challenge properly you win the pot. There were challenges for sinking all 6 of your pieces as 20s, each player hitting a 20 on 2 consecutive shots around the table, and getting an angle-in shot from the 5 point zone. I entered all of them immediately.
Seeding
David and I entered the seeding tournament not knowing what to expect. We knew we had 9 matches and that we couldn’t be eliminated but the big question was how well would we do? We had a clean sweep for our first match 8 to 0 for the City Flickers. This boosted our spirits nicely, getting us started. Our early victory was only matched by our next 2 immediate and subsequent failures. We lost, 6 to 2 to team “Stay Off My Yard”. Then we lost narrowly (5 to 3) to team “Krackenators”, who I might add made it to the semi-finals. We went on to have a generally winning record with 5 wins (2 of them clean sweeps) 2 ties, and 2 losses. We ended up seeding 5th overall for the tournament. I was very proud of having come out in the top of the pack for our first event.
Elimination Tournament
Now, this is sadly where the wheels fell off the cart… then it caught fire… fell off a cliff … landed on a church... full of puppies. In our very first match we went up against the New Hampshire team. David and I both had one of those terrible games where you can’t get anything right. Professionally I believe it’s known as “quicksand.” Between the two of us we had only two 20s the entire match. It was a miserable and abrupt end to what had been a promising start.
But, I’m still proud we showed up, happy we did as well as we did, and I am devoted to doing better next year. We shall return to Indian Ladder Farms and the American Legion in 2023!
Good Karma Interlude
Every year Jeremy Tracey makes a board for the US Open, and this year was no different. The board sported a red bullseye center, a classy maple surface standing in for white, and a deep blue gutter, rounding out the entire complement of red, white and blue. The board is typically raffled off to the attendees and you better believe I bought a raffle ticket. I know a few people who bought more than 1 ticket in hopes of getting that particular board.
At the tournament, I met a man named Tom Sherer who was just having the time of his life playing crokinole. After talking to him a bit, getting to hear his story, and getting him to join my club (of course), he explained that he didn’t even have a board. He said that he was there to partner with his brother-in-law who had the board he played on. He could only play when his brother came to visit him in Pittsburgh, so he didn’t get to play often but he loved the game.
When the board raffle came up just before the finals, I didn’t win the board. But, you can guess who did. I can’t think of a better, more deserving person to win. I couldn’t even be a little bit jealous of him. He was probably one of the only few people in the event who didn’t own or have access to a board. Most of the other people who had bought a ticket were probably hoping to bring home their 2nd or 3rd board if they won that raffle, myself included. Congratulations to Tom and I believe it was just great Karma that he took that particular win, well done!
Carrying On
So, we didn’t make it to the finals, but the semi final matches were intense. Magic Mike and Jason went up against team Protractor and Angles. It was a high stakes match where the nationally ranked Canadian team was perhaps favored? Mike and Jason pulled out to an incredible lead and then the Canadians started to close the gap. The tension was mounting as Ray and Jason Beierling seemed to come back stronger and stronger. But, the Americans emerged victorious. Giving the Americans in the crowd hope that the 2022 US Open might be won by a US team.
I can’t say I caught much of the other semi-final match, but I did try to check in once in a while. That match was team Ron Jeremy vs the Krackenators (one of the teams that managed to beat us in the qualifiers). I do know that despite their best efforts the Krackenators were taken down fairly definitively. So, the finals would be Magic Mike McTague and Jason Molloy (the man responsible for this great event) vs. Ron Langill and Jeremy Tracey.
The Finals
Team Irish steel took the field against team Ron Jeremy. It was a race to 12, strangely not an odd number, but that ultimately didn’t end up being an issue. The Canadians rocketed out to a humbling 6-0 lead over our heros. But the fighting Irish would not give up so quickly. They rallied late and soon the score was 11 to 7 still in team Ron Jeremy’s favor, but Irish Steel had 2 wins worth of steam and momentum. After a grueling full hour long competition, under the bright lights, team Ron Jeremy took the win. It was a match to remember and an event to remember. The first US Open that brought people together after a time when meeting in public had been damn near illegal for almost 2 years now.
Final Thoughts
This whole event represents 2 things to me. First, the US has fully adopted crokinole as a game we love. Sorry Canada, it’s ours now! You can still play it, you certainly started it, but it’s ours now too! And frankly, I’m all in. I couldn’t be happier about this. Second, despite the fact that it is a competition with patriotic rivals (US vs. Canadians), tons of booing and cheering, and even some hissing, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a friendlier competition. Crokinole continues to bring people together in the best ways, from across the border and beyond. Personally, I can’t wait for the next US Open!
Marc M. Ponzio D.O.
Brooklyn Crokinole Club
US and UK Hold Successful Championships
June 11, 202215 years ago it would have been hard to imagine a legitimate national crokinole championship in a country other than Canada, but amazingly there were 2 in the last couple weeks.
US Open
The Extra Pint Crokinole Club put together another edition of the US Open Doubles Championship. The defending champions, Jason and Ray Beierling, were in attendance and were defeated by the top American team of Mike McTague and Jason Molloy. The semifinal victory of McTague/Molloy was a delight to home crowd, as is evidenced in the match video posted by the Texas chapter of the Extra Pint club.
You can also find the championship match featuring Jeremy Tracey and Ron Langill's big victory against McTague/Molloy.
United Kingdom
The first ever United Kingdom Crokinole Championship took place on June 4th. Event organizer Ian Witt wrote a nice recap you should check out, but you can also watch the finals and a semifinal match from the event.
The semifinal battle was posted on the same youtube channel that posts many matches from Spanish competition, and features 4-time World Champion Brian Cook playing Dave Cropper.
The championship match was posted on the Tracey Boards youtube channel, where Brian Cook claimed another tournament victory in his spectacular career by defeating Mike Ray for the first ever UK title.
Crokinole Begins Again - A Global Update
May 21, 2022Like discs on an unwaxed board, competitive crokinole is moving slowly, but that’s better than not moving at all. The return to competitive crokinole has, for good reason, been hesitant. But even with a slower paced return, compared to other social and entertainment activities following more than 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s clear enthusiasm is still strong. It remains to be seen whether that enthusiasm will be as strong as it was prior to the pandemic, but things are clearly ramping up with a number of crokinole events that have happened lately, and a number of events that are upcoming fast.
Netherlands
October of 2021 featured the 2nd edition of the Netherlands national championship. The initial event was held in 2019, and seems to only have improved in quality and rowdiness in the 2021 feature video. A couple of well-known crokinole players, Joert Edink and Sander Brugman, came away victorious and should also be much applauded for coming up with my-current-favourite-team-name the Roaring Twenties.
You can keep tabs on the Dutch crokinole scene with this website or on facebook.
Hungary
The Hungarian Federation has been back in swing since March and is picking up their impressive tournament schedule with nearly one event each month. Some familiar names have won in the latest events, including Gáspár Létay and Krisztián Berzlánovich. Keeping up with the flurry of tournaments in Hungary can be difficult, but made easier by checking their federation’s website and their facebook page.
Spain
Crokinole action in Spain is probably the most sparing for information, but there was a 2021 Open de España and videos from a number of matches at that event have been posted on this youtube channel.
Belgium
Belgium had a solid presense in the European crokinole scene in the 2010s, and recently they’ve returned to the stage with a doubles event. The Roaring Twenties made the trip into the Dutch speaking region and almost came away with the title, but it was the legendary Belgian duo of Bert Costermans and Dennis Vrints (cleverly named Crok Monsieurs) who extended their unbeaten streak by winning the event.
Crokinole NL has a nice recap of the event on facebook, and you can also find some more details on the tournament website.
United Kingdom
Lastly in Europe, coming up on June 4th is the first event UK Crokinole Championship being held in conjunction with the UK Games Expo. It should be very interesting to see who emerges as the first-ever UK champion.
Australia
Last month Australia hosted the 2022 Bottom Half of the Word Cup with a tournament video that really makes it look a like a fun event. And in addition to the tournament there’s a number of crokinole communities that have sprouted up in the nation: Crokinole AUS, Crokinole Melbourne, and Footscray Flickers.
USA
The USA is making an emerging claim to being a new hotbed for crokinole as there’s been a remarkable number of new clubs appear in recent months. Leading the way on the tournament front is the Extra Pint clubs, where there was a doubles event recently in Texas and as this is being written the 2022 US Open Doubles event is happening in New York.
Canada
Finally in Canada, clubs in St. Jacobs and the Owen Sound area have been up and running, and Mildmay was the site of a crokinole event in late April. Of course the big news was that the World Championship committee decided in early March to cancel the 2022 event, but a new event has entered the calendar as Wilmot plays host to the 2022 NCA Players Championship.
Due to the pandemic the 2019-2020 NCA Tour was officially cancelled with Jason Beierling being declared the winner, thanks to his victory over Andrew Hutchinson in the finals of the 2020 Hamilton event, which pushed him into first place in what would become the final event of the 19/20 Tour.
And so the NCA Players Championship marks the beginning of the 2022-2023 NCA Tour, and hopefully also marks the continued return of competitive crokinole.
Crokinole Trick Shots
April 29, 2022
Crokinole Trick Shots - Teaser
April 25, 2022Introducing Crokinole Reference
February 13, 2022A home for competitive crokinole records and statistics
If you were thinking, “CrokinoleCentre has really abandoned crokinole during the pandemic,” well it turns out the reality is much darker than that. I’ve actually spent a couple hundred hours over the last 2 years on a crokinole project so exceptionally trivial that I may be the only person who finds it interesting.
I recall once in high school showing an early CrokinoleCentre video to a classmate. It was met bluntly with the response of “I can understand playing crokinole, but watching people play it is incredibly lame.” In those days it was cool to use words like lame in high school. It was decidedly not cool to talk about crokinole in high school. But that didn’t stop me.
Forging full steam ahead in the face of public indifference really was the vibe CrokinoleCentre back then, and with today’s announcement I think I’ve out-done myself.
I introduce to you Crokinole Reference: A thorough and wholistic reference of competitive crokinole (aka, how I wasted my time during covid).
Crokinole Reference is a new website that intends to be a database for competitive crokinole results from all over the world, covering both the present day and the past. While you can find some past results on the World Championship site, the NCA website, and Hungarian Crokinole site, on Crokinole Reference you can find everything (well, that’s the goal anyway).
On Crokinole Reference you will find:
- tournament results, even including head-to-head game summaries
- player summaries, including their best performances
- records showing the best crokinole performances of all-time and through any event
- CrokinoleCentre rankings dating back to the year 2000. (The rankings aren’t finalized as I’m still modifying the calculation process to remove a myriad of errors. I’ll definitely put up a new blog post when those are actually fixed. Don't expect that to be anytime soon though.)
I also have some ideas for new features to add to the site in the future, but I think this initial version is a sufficient foundation.
I’m biased, but I think it’s truly a great resource for that special someone in your life who commentates crokinole matches, or who writes blogs about competitive crokinole. Feel free to do them a favour by recommending this website.
I hope those reading this will check out the site, as I’m also expecting that there are lots of errors in the database. I’d appreciate being emailed about any you may find. For example, there’s likely to be errors about the following:
- Names. The database requires that player names be the same everytime. It seems that scorekeepers at various tournaments are required to spell some player names differently every time. Beierling spelt as Beerling, Bierling and Bearling. Miltenburg spelt as Miltenberg. Reinman spelt as Rienman and Rainmen. And that’s just the last names.
- On the first names there was a mish-mash of Ray and Raymond. Johnanthan, Jonathan, John and Jon. Robert, Rob and Bob. William, Will, Bill and Billy. I did my best to converge the names into one consistent listing, but I know I haven’t fixed it everywhere. So please do point out errors where you find them, and please do let me know if your preferred name spelling is different than what I’ve got. Maybe it is actually supposed to be Coner Rainmen.
- Also, sometimes people have identical or near identical names. One year at the World Championships there were two entries for David Brown. That was eventually cleared up as a data-entry error with the correct versions being David Brown and David Braun, but I can’t guarantee I’ve cleaned up all of those issues in my database. I’ve tried to separate out the cases of Bob Mader (Sr) from Rob Mader (Jr), but also can’t be certain I’ve done it correctly.
There is also one other request I have for the readers out there. I want this website to be a source of competitive crokinole history.
When I joined the competitive crokinole world in the mid-2000s I only heard about events like the Canadian Crokinole Championships, the Goderich museum event, or even the Ontario Singles Crokinole Championship. They were referenced like myths, with scarce photos and certainly no video. To those who weren’t there it’s a question whether they happened at all. To those that were there, to those whose memories confirm that it happened, they must think there’s no place to share those results. I want Crokinole Reference to be the place to definitively record that these events did happen.
So if you are sitting on results, even just partial results, from old tournaments, please consider contributing them to the database. I’ve left some instructions on the site for how you can share them so they can be displayed.
If you are interested in getting your hands on the raw data of crokinole matches and results, you can visit the CrokinoleCentre GitHub page. The spreadsheets containing all these crokinole results can be found there, along with python scripts I wrote to make the website. This would be obvious to anyone who looks at what I wrote, but I’m not a coder, so I am hesitant to share what is likely an embarrassing assembly of code. However, I thought it might be prudent to make the work available so that this history of competitive crokinole results can live on without a dependency on me.
Overall, I must say I’m very happy with the result of the website, and I’m very excited to share it with the few individuals out there who might find it interesting.
When the pandemic started I was looking for projects that would keep me sane, and that would keep me occupied. I nearly went insane with how much this project occupied my time and my mind. Beginning in April of 2020 I spent about 2 hours a week formatting results from hundreds of crokinole tournaments into a nice clean database. And starting in August of 2021 I spent 5-10 hours a week figuring out how to transform that database into a ranking system and a website. In total that’s a staggering amount of time, but it’s basically the time I’d spend playing crokinole, making crokinole videos, writing about crokinole, and sitting on crokinole committees during the pre-covid era.
Channeled into a different pursuit I wonder what else could have been accomplished in that time. Could I have learned to play an instrument? Could I have become fluent in French? Could I have trained for and ran multiple marathons? I think yes, I could have.
But in the momentary pauses of daily life, those moments spent folding laundry, washing dishes, waiting at a red light, the challenge of learning how to make this crokinole website and the excitement of seeing the finished product were all I was thinking about. At times working on this project made me feel like Ahab in search of Moby Dick. And especially in the last few weeks I was desperate to finish this project so I could get if off my mind.
I am relieved to have finished the website, but I don’t regret taking up the project or the time I spent on it. I did acquire some new html and python knowledge I didn’t have before, and at the very least I created a handy reference I can use for blogs and commentary in the future. But more so than anything, it was important to have a project like this be something to work on during Covid. The first book I read during the pandemic was Voltaire’s Candide which famously concludes with a line that translates to something like ”we must all tend our own garden” as a suggestion for how to achieve happiness and peace in an uncontrollable world. In a few hours each week, Crokinole Reference served as my own garden.
I didn’t get around to reading Moby Dick during the pandemic, and therefore probably never will, but I think my journey was the same as that protagonist. I assume he catches the fish and goes home to practice for the next crokinole tournament? That’s what I would have done . . .