Saturday 12 April 2014

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.

Wednesday 9 April 2014

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.