Battle of buttons descends on Tavistock, Ont.

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TAVISTOCK, Ont. — To the flicktor go the spoils.

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Or, in the case of the cue crowd, sticktory awaits.

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If the fingers-only crokinole purists had their way, they’d mandate you leave your stick at home — or maybe just burn the small wooden cue once and for all.

The cue crew, meanwhile, means no harm. They claim increased precision and a 100% decrease in minor finger pain.

Some signage and rope distinguished separate playing areas inside the Tavistock arena on Saturday, but truth be told, everyone at the 24th World Crokinole Championships was in this together as they celebrated their cherished game at what is largely viewed as the Super Bowl of crokinole.

That’s not to suggest play wasn’t extremely heated when the record 400-plus competitors arrived in this otherwise sleepy southwestern Ontario town — same time, same place each year — to vie for the game’s hole-y grail.

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For the uninitiated, crokinole is a game said to be invented in Canada by Eckhardt Wettlaufer, who built the first known board in 1876 just outside Tavistock. Crokinole incorporates elements of shuffleboard and curling and can be played in singles and doubles formats. There’s a round, wooden, tabletop-sized playing surface, a recessed centre hole where 20 points — “20s” — await those who successfully aim and fire a wooden disc, or button, into it, and a few other scoring scenarios rounded out by a “ditch,” the place you don’t want your buttons to be. There are also pegs to ensure that reaching the board’s highest-scoring inner circle or an opponent’s button is no sure shot.

The old-school traditionalists who use their fingers to flick the discs and new-wavers with their cues share equal passion across the board.

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“The game is so simple, but there’s strategy. Board control is so important,” said Jeremy Tracey, owner of Elmira, Ont.-based Tracey Boards, which handcrafts and sells crokinole boards to enthusiasts all over the world and is the Tavistock event’s official board builder.

The marksmen, women and youngsters in Tavistock, who this year represented First Nations, seven provinces and 16 states, as well as the U.K., Japan and The Netherlands to challenge for a crokinole crown, know how to aim and fire.

Unlike me.

Armed with Mennonite heritage and as the proud owner of a crokinole board for many years, I registered for my first world event, thinking that maybe, just maybe I stood a chance in the singles cues division.

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Not quite. Let’s just say that my first quest for a world crokinole title didn’t end with a world crokinole title. (The sharpshooters would surely suggest that playing more than twice a year would be one way to improve my standing.)

While I flunked out of contention on cue, some of the game’s true greats excelled under the bright lights west of Kitchener and southeast of Stratford.

And let me just say: These players are flickin’ good.

Crokinole’s biggest stars, such as five-time world champ Justin Slater, Connor Reinman, Josh Carrafiello, Devon Fortino, Jason Beierling and Andrew Hutchinson, are perennial contenders. They’re all equally No. 1 nice guys in a game regarded for its fair play and sportsmanship, Tracey said.

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“It is probably the most friendly high-level competition you will ever see. Yes, it’s very competitive, but … the competitors are friends,” said Tracey, a National Crokinole Association-ranked player who won his first world competitive doubles crown with Hutchinson on Saturday after a previous-best runner-up finish last year.

“I joke that I want to see crokinole in the Olympics, but I’m only half-joking,” Tracey added. “I want to see it grow, but I hope it doesn’t ever lose the purity and the wholesomeness that it has now.”

With technological advancements and screen time running wild in this modern age, crokinole remains regarded by many as a refreshing throwback — frozen in time in its simplicity.

And some heated competitions aside, the name of the game at the Tavistock worlds is undoubtedly fun, with categories for every age and skill set. The youngest competitor on Saturday was 5 and the oldest 92.

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“Crokinole’s a really adaptable game. You can play it socially or competitively, across all ages and languages,” said Nathan Walsh, a top-ranked player and event organizer. “And even though our tournament is the world championships, we are still able to provide an environment that allows for high level competition, and good family fun.”

And know this: With some practise, winning a world title or finishing near the top isn’t a pipe dream. Guelph, Ont.’s Shawn Hagarty won his first world title on Saturday, just three years after entering the competitive crokinole scene, while two of my friends from Elmira, Ont. — David Notzold and Mike Towns — were in crokinole heaven after finishing runner-up and fourth, respectively, in singles cues just a handful of years into their promising crokinole careers.

While the finger jockeys might not agree that those stickin’ it to the competition with a wooden cue are playing crokinole as it was intended, there’s no use pointing fingers anywhere other than toward the 20-hole or a competitor’s button.

“The greatest way to play crokinole is the way you enjoy it the most,” Tracey said. “I will always shoot with my fingers … but if I need to switch to a cue to keep playing, you had better believe I’ll do it.”

Ishantz@postmedia.com

On X: @IanShantz

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