St. Jacob’s Wins 2014 Joseph Schneider Haus Tournament

The St. Jacob’s Crokinole Club won the 22nd edition of the Joseph Schneider Haus invitational crokinole tournament, and in doing so became the winningest crokinole club in tournament history.

20 of the world’s best crokinole players, teamed among 5 of the world’s best clubs piled into the Joseph Schneider Haus museum in Kitchener on Saturday. The 2014 tournament was the 22nd edition of the event that started in 1993. It’s widely recognized as the longest running active crokinole tournament in the world. However, some newspapers would disagree: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/life/Sporting+Christmas+record/7743628/story.html (the short blurb about crokinole is near the bottom)

While the event often undergoes changes from year to year, tournament mainstays in Varna, Preston and St. Jacob’s all had a team in attendance. Since it’s creation a few years ago the Waterloo club has also been a consistent attendee. This year the Quinte Region Crokinole Club got their first crack at the tournament and wasted no time gearing up and getting acquainted with the “oldest known” crokinole board in the world. 

Built in 1875, it’s only 8 years younger than the country it resides.

The tournament’s format is a simple singles round-robin, each player facing each other with the exception of your own teammates. After the full 16 games the scores are tallied and the top team (based on the 4 individual scores) is crowned the champion.

A popular feature of the tournament among the players is not in the gameplay of crokinole however, but in the great display of hospitality shown by the curators of the Joseph Schneider Haus museum. This year a vast array of delectable treats kept many players begging for more.

Getting back to the final results here’s a look at the top 5 scoring players from the event.

Rank	Name	Club	Points
1	Nathan Walsh	Waterloo	92
2	Jason Beierling	Varna	86
3	Fred Slater	St. Jacob’s	83
3	Louis Gauthier	Quinte	83
5	Roy Campbell	St. Jacob’s	77

St. Jacob’s had a very strong day and were able to place all four players in the top 10 individual spots. That would be enough to win the tournament as they scored a collective of 304 points.

A congratulations must be given to Quinte as well for taking second place in their first attendance at the event. 

The following is a breakdown of each team’s score, including how each team scored against one another.

Rank		St. Jacob's	Quinte	Varna	Preston	Waterloo	Total
1	St. Jacob's		75	61	88	80	304
2	Quinte	53		76	73	85	287
3	Varna	67	52		71	76	266
4	Preston	40	55	57		70	222
5	Waterloo	48	43	52	58		201

While Varna was able to beat their arch rivals, St. Jacob’s, in the head-to-head battle 67-61, they were not able to score high enough to reach the top two.

By winning this year’s tournament, St. Jacob’s has become the winningest team in the history of the Joseph Schneider Haus tournament. While the tournament has existed for 22 years, only 3 clubs have ever claimed the top prize. That list includes St. Jacob’s, Varna, and the now defunct, Cameron Heights Teachers club.

While St. Jacob’s won the inaugural event in 1993, the Cameron Heights teachers dominated the early years of the event winning 8 times from 1994-2005. Since then it has been Varna and St. Jacob’s exchanging victories. Since 2006 St. Jacob’s has won 5 titles and Varna has won 4.

But by winning on Saturday St. Jacob’s reached a total of 9 Joseph Schneider Haus victories, finally surpassing the legendary Cameron Heights Teachers who had been at the front of the title race since 1994.

The prize for the St. Jacob’s club is their name on the championship plaque, which has now been entirely filled after 22 years, and the rights to the replica of the world’s oldest known crokinole board for a year.

The 2014 JSH Champs - St. Jacob's
Left to Right: Paul Brubacher, Jon Conrad, Fred Slater, Roy Campbell

The crokinole season has really heated up, and upcoming next will be the finale of the 2013-2014 NCA Tour, taking place in the aforementioned, St. Jacob’s, at the 2014 Ontario Singles Crokinole Championship.

Walsh v Beierling Part II

Nathan Walsh and Ray Beierling met in an elimination game for the second straight tournament, but it would be Walsh turning the tides to win the 2014 Forest City Flickers Crokinole Tournament.

Last Saturday in London 48 players piled into the St. James Westminster Anglican Church for the 6th Annual London Crokinole Tournament. In 2009 the London tournament was the inaugural World Crokinole League event (later renamed the National Crokinole Association), and has continued to be stable for the competitive crokinole tour.

The 2014 edition saw several players trying to score big, earning precious points for the NCA Tour in what was the last event before the NCA Finale.

There was a perfect split of 24 competitive and 24 recreational players, and each category was separated into two groups of 12 for the preliminary round. 

Having particularly strong rounds on the recreational side were Bob Jones, John Lichty, Murray Matthison and Reg Matthison. All scored well above 60 points out of a possible 88 (11 games), and easily advanced to the top group for the second round.

In the competitive category, Ray Beierling had the top score with 65 points and 99 20’s. Nathan Walsh followed (61pts), along with Jason Beierling (58) and Roy Campbell (58). Also making the top group for the second round were Matt Brown, Paul Brubacher, John Harvey and Eric Miltenburg. Just missing out was Rueben Jong who tied Miltenburg with 51pts, but only scored 72 20’s to Miltenburg’s 87.

The action really picked up in the afternoon session. In Recreational Pool A, Roy Brete grabbed the last playoff spot, and then won the playoff portion to finish 1st in Rec. over Reg Matthison, Bob Jones and John Lichty.

In Competitive Pool C, Jon Conrad scored 49 points out of a possible 56 in the second round, then carried through to win the playoffs over Ron Reesor, Dave Brown and Clare Kuepfer.

Competitive Pool B saw Fred Slater grab the 3rd seed in the round-robin, but then come out on top in the playoffs. ahead of Ab Leitch, Rueben Jong and Peter Tarle.

Lastly, in the Pool A competition, it was Nathan Walsh (37), Roy Campbell (34), Eric Miltenburg (31) and Ray Beierling (30) take the top 4 spots to advance to the playoffs. Jason Beierling was unfortunately on the outside looking in, after scoring 27 points to finish 5th in the tournament.

In the round of 4 playoffs, Ray Beierling would grab the top seed with 16 points, while Nathan Walsh would take the other spot in the Championship final with 14 points, leaving Roy Campbell for third place and Eric Miltenburg for fourth.

The finals was a rematch of the Golden Horseshoe semifinal from January. There Ray Beierling came out on top in three games, before losing in extra rounds in the finals to Ron Haymes.

In the London final, Walsh came out firing in the first round and scored 8 20’s for perfect game, while Beierling’s 7 20’s would not be enough. Walsh would go on to win the first game 6-2. Beierling would respond in game 2, jumping out to a 4-0 lead with some dominant crokinole, before sealing the game in the fourth round for a 6-2 win.

That sent the match to deciding third game. Up 4-2, Walsh was poised to take the match with the hammer in the fourth round. However, Beierling would take the lead early in the round, and looked to be in good shape to send the match to a winner-take-all 5th round. Until Walsh scored a lucky 20, bouncing off 2 pegs, to draw even. Walsh then scored on a follow through 20 to take an insurmountable lead, and won the match 6-2, 2-6, 6-2 for his first London title.

Left to Right: Nathan Walsh, Ray Beierling and Roy Campbell accept their top 3 prizes.

As mentioned, many men were targeting some high scores with the hopes of solidifying their NCA Tour position before the finale. Here’s an updated look at the Tour standings with only one tournament to go.

Rank	First Name	Last Name	Points	4th Score	Max Score	Max Position
1	Ray	Beierling	200	50	205	1
2	John	Conrad	199	45	209	1
3	Ron	Haymes	192	47	200	1
5	Nathan	Walsh	186	41	200	1
4	Fred	Slater	190	45	200	1
6	Jason	Beierling	181	40	196	3
7	Louis	Gauthier	172	33	194	3
8	Matt	Brown	171	40	186	5
8	Roy	Campbell	171	41	185	6
11	Eric	Miltenburg	162	38	179	7
12	Tom	Johnston	157	34	178	7
13	Howard	Martin	147	0	202	1
14	John	Harvey	145	0	200	1
14	Raymond	Haymes	145	33	167	10
16	David	Brown	139	20	174	7
16	Justin	Slater	139	30	164	11
18	Clare	Kuepfer	135	22	168	10
19	Nathan	Jongsma	134	0	189	5
10	Brian	Cook	165	35	185	6
20	Peter	Tarle	125	26	154	13

There will be a much more in depth analysis of these standings and all of the possible outcomes regarding the race at a later date, closer to the NCA Tour Finale in St. Jacob’s, also known as the Ontario Singles Championships, which takes place on May 10th.

In the mean time, the focus shifts to the longest running crokinole tournament in history, the Joseph Schneider Haus invitational in Waterloo, on April 12th. CrokinoleCentre will be attendance to provide all the updates from this exclusive team event.