St. Jacobs: Final Stop for 7th NCA Season

The 2014-2015 National Crokinole Association Tour will conclude in St. Jacobs this Saturday, May 2nd, with the solidification of the final NCA rankings and the last look at player preparation before the 2015 World Crokinole Championship.

St. Jacobs is a town rich with history, and more importantly, crokinole history. While the location of the tournament has moved from the iconic firehall to the St. Jacobs Mennonite Church, the tournament is sure to be filled with the heritage of years of crokinole played by the local club, and the revived Ontario Singles Crokinole Championship.

If you really want to get a feel for the town of St. Jacobs, try listening to Stuart MacLean of CBC’s Vinyl Cafe put it into words. (You can download the show from St. Jacobs with this link, looking for the episode entitled “Stamps” - April 25, 2014)

Now crokinole doesn’t make the cut into Stuart’s opening dialogue, but its still worth listening to hear the ties of Darryl Sittler and Home Hardware to the town of St. Jacobs (along with the “dubious” origin of the town’s name), and the local musical talent of Danny Michel.

The focus for this weekend however, remains as the important crokinole matches that are to take place this Saturday. Hanging in the balance is the NCA Tour Title, of which 3 familiar foes will battle for, and the Ontario Singles Championship, of which 2 have owned in the last 6 years.

Starting with a look at the NCA Tour Standings, what follows below is the usual chart displaying the current rankings, and the maximum possible scores and ranks that can be achieved with one event remaining (and 55 points for the 1st place finisher).

Rank	First Name	Last Name	Points	4th Score	Max Pts	Max Rank
1	Justin	Slater	204	47	212	1
2	Ray	Beierling	198	48	205	1
3	Nathan	Walsh	196	47	204	1*
4	Brian	Cook	190	40	205	1
5	Fred	Slater	186	41	200	2
6	Matt	Brown	181	40	196	3
7	Jon	Conrad	177	41	191	4
8	Roy	Campbell	173	41	187	5
9	Jason	Beierling	167	32	190	4
10	Rex	Johnston	163	34	184	6
10	David	Brown	163	36	182	6
12	Eric	Miltenburg	162	38	179	7
12	Clare	Kuepfer	162	32	185	6
14	John	Harvey	159	34	180	7
15	Tom	Johnston	155	30	180	7
16	Peter	Tarle	153	32	176	8
17	Ron	Reesor	152	32	175	8
18	Howard	Martin	143	29	169	9
19	Alex	Protas	139	32	162	12
20	Reuben	Jong	138	33	160	14

Battle for First

As can been seen in the chart above, three players have the potential to come away with the NCA Tour title on Saturday. There’s an asterisk next to Nathan Walsh’s score, as a total of 204 points would only be enough to tie for first place, with the tiebreaker going to Justin Slater by way of more tournament victories.

Photo Credit: Eric Miltenburg

Justin Slater holds the top spot and can seal the Tour title by finishing in the top 3. While a 4th place finish would earn 48 points, moving Slater’s total to 205, a win by either Brian Cook or Ray Beierling would also push their point total to 205, as well as extend their number of tournament victories beyond Slater’s current total of 2.

So the formula is simple for both Ray Beierling and Brian Cook. To win the Tour they must win in St. Jacobs, while also preventing Justin Slater from finishing in the Top 3.

Top 3 Possibilities

The battle to grab a spot of the NCA Tour podium adds some intrigue. While the aforementioned three players have a strong chance of finishing in the Top 3, if either Nathan Walsh, Fred Slater and Matt Brown cap off a strong NCA Tour with an Ontario Singles title, they could easily find themselves in the Top 3 at the end of the day.

While this tournament also runs as the Ontario Singles Championship, it is important to mention the past successes of a couple of players at this event. In the past 6 years, Brian Cook has won twice (2009, 2011), and Justin Slater has won 4 times (2010, 2012-2014). Slater’s streak of three straight titles is impressive, and nearly historic.

He already holds the NCA record for most wins in a single tournament, with 4. (Though it should be clarified that only 2 Brian Cook’s 4 World Championship victories have come since the introduction of the NCA). 

Slater could also set a new NCA record of longest winning streak at an NCA event (his set of 3 victories is tied with Ray Beierling’s 3 wins in London, and Brian Cook and Fred Slater’s 3 wins at the Ontario Doubles tournament).

Also coming into the tournament with some strong history are Jon Conrad and Jason Beierling, who finished inside of the Top Four, 5 and 4 times respectively. It should be interesting to see what is in store for one of the most competitive crokinole events of the year. With most players looking to peak their crokinole form in the coming weeks, this could be a fantastic Saturday of crokinole.

The 7th NCA Tour has been one of the largest, both in terms of attendance and number of tournaments. Now it all comes to a close this Saturday in what is the penultimate event before the World Crokinole Championships. 

St. Jacobs, Walsh repeat at Joseph Schneider Haus

The oldest active crokinole tournament in the world rolled over to year 23 on Saturday as the 2015 Waterloo County Classic Invitational Team Crokinole Tournament. This April Saturday had  elements of deja vu, especially with respect to the final results, but the way the story was told was all too different this time around.

Competitors chat and practice in the lower
hall of the Joseph Schneider Haus Museum.

The always well-run tournament, hosted by the Joseph Schneider Haus museum, has set the stage every April since 1993 for clubs from near and far to partake in a rare team crokinole event. This years event hosted 6 teams, though there are hopes to increase that number in the near future.

As always the tournament welcomed the clubs of St. Jacobs, Varna and Preston, each with a storied history and long list of successful crokinole players. The local Waterloo club was in attendance, as they always have since being formed in 2010, while London returned to the event after a one-year absence. The field was rounded out by a brand-new team, as the Scone Crokinole Club made their very first appearance at the Joseph Schneider Haus tournament.

The tournament format is incredibly simple: 4 players per team, all singles, one-game against every player from an opposing club. A simple format allowed the action to go incredibly fast, with the only stop being lunch. Prepared by the Joseph Schneider Haus, the lunch and other freshly-baked treats may be the most popular part of the crokinole event (even rivalling that of the presence of the world’s oldest crokinole board).

Made in 1875 in Sebastopol, the Joseph Schneider Haus
museum houses the world's oldest known crokinole board

While every board has a story worth telling, it is part of the short description accompanying the board that is a joy to read.

“Its pristine condition indicates that it was seldom played upon . . .”

How ironic that a board that was rarely used decades ago (and of course is never used now), is largely responsible for the World Crokinole Championships and Joseph Schneider Haus tournament.

The St. Jacobs Crokinole Club returned to the tournament with the same quartet that allowed them to claim victory the year before. Meanwhile the Varna Crokinole Club enlisted the top 4 finishers at the most recent London Crokinole tournament to make their best run at the title. The tournament has been dominated by those two clubs, with one of them winning every year since 2006 (a 5-4 edge for St. Jacobs). The action on Saturday was as close as it possibly could be.

	2015 Joseph Schneider Haus Team vs Team Comparison
	St. Jacobs	Varna	London	Preston	Waterloo	Scone		Total	Rank
St. Jacobs	0	56	87	80	81	99		403	1
Varna	72	0	82	85	65	97		401	2
London	41	46	0	62	63	69		281	4
Preston	48	43	68	0	51	62		272	5
Waterloo	47	63	65	77	0	92		344	3
Scone	29	31	59	66	36	0		221	6

In what was the closest finish in tournament history, the St. Jacobs Crokinole Club retained the team title with 403 points, barely edging Varna with 401. Meanwhile Waterloo claimed their highest finish in club history with a 3rd place finish.

The Team vs Team scores reveal that the Varna club actually edged out every team it played in head-to-head competition (including a 72-56 victory over St. Jacobs). But St. Jacobs was able to score extremely well against all of the other teams to make up the difference.

A fine bottle of syrup was the 2015 prize for top scorer.

The competition was also very tight for the individual honours. 6 players of the 24 were able to reach triple-digits (out of a possible 160 points).

Rank	Name	Club	Points
1	Nathan Walsh	Waterloo	117
2	Jon Conrad	St. Jacobs	112
3	Ray Beierling	Varna	108
4	Paul Brubacher	St. Jacobs	103
5	Rex Johnston	Varna	102
6	Ab Leitch	Varna	100

Nathan Walsh repeated as the individual champion, while Jon Conrad and Ray Beierling rounded out the top 3. Incredibly, the 8 members from Varna and St. Jacobs all ended up finishing in the top 9. St. Jacobs grabbed 2nd, 4th, 7th and 8th(tied), while Varna finished in 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th(tied).

2015 Joseph Schneider Haus Team Champions: St. Jacobs
Paul Brubacher, Roy Campbell, Jon Conrad, Fred Slater

With the extremely close finish, the St. Jacobs Crokinole Club successfully defended their title, pushing the club further up historical standings with 10 titles. While it still seems so strange that a tournament with such a long history has only been won by 3 teams, you get the feeling that with new teams being added to the mix every year, that may not be true for long.

So while the end results may be a repeat of a prior year, the story of it all and the crokinole action continue to entice. Thanks to Joseph Schneider Haus for their tremendous hospitality again this year, we hope to see everyone again in 2016 for the 24th edition of the Waterloo County Classic Invitational Team Crokinole Tournament.