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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1999-05-05, Page 31CrOssroads PIZZA HOT LINE 235-3141 Exeter Times -Advocate Wednesday, Play 5 ,1 949 Page 21 Local crokinolers to compete at world championships By Craig Bradford TIMES -ADVOCATE STAFF EXETER VARNA — Several local croki- nole players will let the chips fall where they may at the '99 World Crokinole Championship at the Tavistock & District Rec Centre on June 5. Exeter's Joe Fulop and Bob Russell as well as Varna's Jason and Raymond Beierling and Ivan and Marg McClymont will represent the Varna Crokinole Club at the world championship tournament. All six will compete in singles while Fulop and Russell, the Beierlings and the McClymonts will team up as doubles pairs. Jason will compete in the under 15 group. What is crokinole? Crokinole is played on a wooden board that features a num- ber of pegs in a circle surrounding a hole in the board's centre, Players take turns 'flicking' flat disks called buttons (or men) at each other's disks with the object of leaving the most number of disks when all the disks have been played. Each singles player has eight but- tons while each doubles player has six. Points are awarded for the remaining buttons on the board according to how close they are to the centre (15 for the area right around the centre hole, 10 the next area out and five in the outlying area). Twenty points are awarded for landing a button in the middle hole. Various strategies can be used. Some player* try to hide their dtaias"befrierd pegs to force their opponent to flick their button off the peg and off the playing sur- face into the gutter. Other players like Fulop, a five -time Ontario crokinole champ, go for the big points. "My strategy is to score as many 20s as I can," he said. What does it take to be a good croki- nole player? Fulop said good hand -eye co-ordina- tion is key. So is practice, practice, prac- tice. "There's not much luck involved," Fulop said. Russell agrees. "It requires alot of skill," he said. "It's not as simple as it looks." Fulop almost has his technique down to a science. He has been known to hit his button off an opponent's button in the five -point and notch a centre hole several times a game. Crokinole was created in Canada some- time in the mid -1860s in the Ontario counties of Waterloo, Wellington and Perth. The game is a hybrid of an English game called Squails (same size board as crokinole) and an East Indian game called Carrom (using the same 'flicking' motion of the fingers towards a centre target as crokinole). Crokinole's roots go back to simple English games like Shove Ha -Penny (sim- ple pushing of a coin across a flat ser- vice) and Shovel Board (precursor to today's Shuffleboard). No, one knows more about crokinole's history than former Exeter area resident Wayne Kelly, now of Stratford. Kelly, a fifth . generation crokinole player, wrote The Crokinole Book in 1988 and is thought of as the world's leading authori- ty on the game: Kelly said he didn't start out with plans to write a book on crokinole. He became interested in where crokinole came from but he wound up empty during research In a London library even after checking out 29 different encycbpedias. Kelly then wrote the Toronto Star about his dilemma which published his quest for crokinole knowledge. CBC Radio's Peter Crzowski picked up on the story and interviewed Kelly several times. Those interviews generated 500-600 letters sent to the CBC from people from across North America trying to help Kelly out. The letters were forwarded to Kelly who then got the idea to write The Crokinole Book. Kelly is a certifiable crokinole nut. At one time Kelly owned over a 1,000 boards, the world's largest collection. He sold off most of the boards in '91 but is slowly building his collection back up. He owns the world's oldest known crokinole board — one made in Sebastopol near Tavistock in 1875 by Eckhardt Wettlaufer. In comparison, the oldest known U.S. board dates back to 1884. The world's oldest board originating in Tavistock is one reason the world croki- nole championship is being held in Tavistock. The town will also mark its 150th anniversary this year. Kelly has also worked as a consultant and designer for eight crokinole board making companies in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Why is Kelly so dog -gone crokinole crazy? "It's a game where a six-year-old can play with their .96 -year-old grandmoth- er," he said. "What other game could you think of where players of such divergent ages can play together?" Kelly adds his love of crokinole is a patriotic thing. -nrirnstivrativ that Canadian than. hockey," he said. "The Gretzkys of crokinole never retire." Fulop and Russell like the comradeship of the Varna Crokinole Club. "It's fun," Fulop said. "I enjoy the ban- tering while playing with people you know." "It's just a nice night out," Russell said. "They're just friendly people." Kelly, one of the organizers of the World Championship tournament, is excited about the event. There are regis- trants from as far away as New Mexico, Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania and there has been some interest shown from people in England and Japan. Kelly hopes the World Championship turns into an annual event. This year's tournament is limited to 600 players but Kelly said it could grow to thousands of players participating in a weekend long tournament out of two or three centres. About the championship The '99 World Crokinole Championship will be held at the Tavistock & District Rec Centre June 5. Registration is $8 for singles players age 11 and older and $5 for players aged 6-10. Doubles players pay $6 each. The registration deadline is May 28. Tickets for the dinner are also available. To obtain registration forms, write, call, fax or e-mail requests' to:. World Crokinole Championship, Box 988, Tavistock, ON, NOB 2R0; phone: (519) 655-2102; fax: (519) 655-3560; e- mail wcc@crokinole..com. About the Varna Crokinole Club Five people from Exeter are members of the Varna Crokinole Club. The yearly membership costs $10. The club meets every second and fourth Tuesday at 8 p.m. for a couple of hours. Club mem- bers take turns providing food and refreshments. Fulop said an Exeter branch of the club is being formed to cut down on travel time for the Exeter members and to attract more members. - • The Varna club is the defending Ontario team champions (team members Fulop, Ivan McCtymont and Jason and Raymond Beierling). For more information on the Varna (5.19) 233-3214: Crokinole Club, call Ivan McClymont at • • rY:v.�:•i::y:?��i:i Above: Fun antique. Former Exeter area resi- dent Wayne KeIIy, now of Stratford, shows off a repli- ca of the world's oldest crokinole board.The base for the stand-in • board was made in London. in 1925 while the original was made in 1 875 near Tavistock.The original board is on display at Kitchener's Joseph Schneider Haus Museum. Kelly is consid- ered the world authority on crokinole. At right Winning form. Exeter's Bob Russell shows how its done on his crokinole board. Russell will be one of the Varna Crokinole Club representa- tives at the '99 World Crokinole Championship at ►iseock on June 5.