2013 Year-End CrokinoleCentre Rankings

One year ago the first edition of the CrokinoleCentre rankings were released. The main goal was to establish some way of ranking players on their most recent tournaments, to hopefully compare players on their current form. The rankings use results from the past two years with the majority of points weighted with towards the most recent year. 

When the rankings were first released, here’s what the top 20 looked like.

Rank	Name	Points
1	Brian Cook	305.5
2	Jon Conrad	298
3	Fred Slater	296.5
4	Ray Beierling	286.5
5	Jason Beierling	281.5
6	Eric Miltenburg	270.5
7	Joe Arnup	262
8	Nathan Walsh	255.5
9	Clare Kuepfer	246.5
10	Ron Haymes	240
11	Paul Brubacher	239
12	Louis Gauthier	233.5
13	Justin Slater	230
14	Howard Martin	223
15	Dave Brown	213.5
16	Matt Brown	183
17	Rex Johnston	179.5
18	Greg Matthison	168.5
19	Chris Gorsline	157
20	Ray Haymes	148

Despite being the first to ever win the doubles and singles categories in one World Championships (and amassing enough points to propel him to his first NCA Tour title), Jon Conrad still sat second to Brian Cook’s consistent form. This seemed fair, as the general consesus of players probably still would have ranked Brian Cook ahead of Jon Conrad at the time, even with Conrad’s historic feat fresh in their mind.

Fred Slater, Ray Beierling and Jason Beierling were coming off consecutive years in the NCA top 5. Miltenurg, Arnup, Walsh, Kuepfer and Gauthier all had strong years in the NCA, while Ron Haymes and Paul Brubacher had recently had strong performances in the World Championships.

Here is a look at the current standings following the 2013 World Championships. (The Top 50 are listed here, but the full rankings including 150 players are listed under the Rankings tab above.)

One full year later and not much has changed among the top group. Most noticeably, Jon Conrad has finally grabbed the number one rankings, moving Brian Cook down to #2. A fitting finish to the year for Conrad, who held the moniker of World Champion, while trying to defend a fantastic start to the NCA Tour, and performed brilliantly through it all. Back-to-back World titles in the singles categories, and a runner-up finish in doubles puts Conrad at the pinnacle of the game of crokinole and easily deserving of the number 1 spot in the rankings.

The rankings points also show a clear distinction between the top 5 and the field, with 33 points between 5th and 6th. A much larger gap than at the start of the year where only 11.5 points separated 5th and 6th. An equally fitting result as the top 5 players, made up the championship finals of every Ontario tournament with the exception of 3. The only Ontario tournament not won by one of these top 5 players was the 2013 St. Jacob’s.

Rank	Name	Points
1	Jon Conrad	304.5
2	Brian Cook	301
3	Fred Slater	297.5
4	Ray Beierling	296.5
5	Jason Beierling	286
6	Eric Miltenburg	253
7	Clare Kuepfer	248.5
8	Nathan Walsh	248
9	Louis Gauthier	246
10	Rex Johnston	235
11	Justin Slater	234.5
12	Matt Brown	231
13	Howard Martin	229.5
14	Roy Campbell	223
15	Tom Johnston	220.5
16	Dave Brown	213
17	Barry Kiggins	206.5
18	Peter Tarle	195
19	Greg Matthison	189.5
20	Chris Gorsline	184
21	John Harvey	177.5
22	Joe Arnup	172
23	Rob Mader	169.5
24	Ron Haymes	162.5
25	Kent Robinson	161.5
26	Ab Leitch	159
27	Lawson Lea	158
28	Dale Henry	157.5
29	Ray Haymes	157
30	Robert Bonnett	155
31	Paul Brubacher	150
32	Lloyd Wiseman	143.5
33	Bob Mader	141
34	Joe Richards	140.5
35	Tony Snyder	139.5
36	Quin Erzinger	139
37	Linda Irvine	137
38	Alex Protas	126.5
39	Rueben Jongsma	126
40	Nathan Jongsma	125.5
41	Ron Reesor	124
42	Adrian Conradi	123.5
43	Michael Hughes	120
44	Reg Chisholm	120
45	Ed Ripley	116.5
46	Bill Freeman	115
47	Ed Erzinger	111.5
48	Roger Vaillancourt	111.5
49	Denis Chartier	110
50	Tom Doucette	109

Throughout the year, the results of only the singles events of the year have been tracked, with the idea that removing the doubles tournaments will provide as different look at each players form, and perhaps give a better idea of who the top players are.

At the start of the year the top 5 looked like this:

Rank	Singles Only	Points
1	Brian Cook	305.5
2	Jon Conrad	298
3	Fred Slater	296.5
4	Ray Beierling	286.5
5	Jason Beierling	281.5

Throughout the year Brian Cook held the number 1 spots in both ranking categories, and will remain the number 1 ranked player in this category at the end of the season. However, the hunt for the top spot has become much tighter with less than 4 points separating the top 3 players. Furthermore, that hunt for the top has created a massive gap between the top 3 and the remaining field, separated by 38 points.

Rank	Singles Only	Points
1	Brian Cook	295
2	Jon Conrad	293.5
3	Ray Beierling	291.5
4	Fred Slater	253.5
5	Eric Miltenburg	246
6	Nathan Walsh	232
7	Clare Kuepfer	227.5
8	Louis Gauthier	222
9	Jason Beierling	221
10	Howard Martin	209.5
11	Roy Campbell	194
12	Peter Tarle	171.5
13	Ab Leitch	159
14	Dale Henry	157.5
15	Greg Matthison	155.5
16	Justin Slater	153.5
17	Barry Kiggins	142
18	Tom Johnston	138
19	Dave Brown	136
20	Joe Arnup	128
21	Alex Protas	126.5
22	Rueben Jongsma	126
23	Ron Reesor	124
24	John Harvey	122.5
25	Rob Mader	115.5
26	Paul Brubacher	113
27	Reg Chisholm	99
28	Bob Mader	90
29	Tom Doucette	88.5
30	Chris Gorsline	88

Overall it has been an enjoyable start to producing and tracking these rankings, and this will continue into the future.

Soon around in the calendar is the second annual running of the Turtle Island Crokinole Tournament in Lewiston, New York on August 11th. And as an extra bonus it will be added to the 2013-2014 NCA Tour.