Winter Crokinole Updates

With the Winter season coming to a close, the crokinole season is heating up to its dramatic climax. So to get you ready for the wild flurry of crokinole that is sure to come, let’s update the crokinole scene.

The NCA Tour only has two Ontario tournaments remaining, and the BC Provincial Championships. So here is a look at the top 25 ranked players on the NCA Tour thus far in the 2012-2013 season.

Rank	First Name	Last Name	Events	Points
1	Jon	Conrad	6	202
2	Brian	Cook	4	200
3	Fred	Slater	6	192
4	Ray	Beierling	5	190
5	Jason	Beierling	4	186
6	Louis	Gauthier	6	174
7	Eric	Miltenburg	6	165
8	Matt	Brown	5	160
9	Howard	Martin	4	150
10	Nathan	Walsh	4	149
11	David	Brown	5	148
11	Clare	Kuepfer	6	148
13	Roy	Campbell	4	143
14	Chris	Gorsline	4	136
15	Peter	Tarle	5	131
16	Justin	Slater	2	104
17	Kent	Robinson	3	100
18	Reg	Chisholm	3	97
19	Ron	Haymes	2	96
20	Rex	Johnston	2	88
21	Len	Chard	3	87
22	Tom	Johnston	2	83
23	Rob Jr.	Mader	2	83
24	John	Harvey	2	83
25	Tony	Snyder	2	82

Since Jon Conrad’s magnificent start to the season, he has been able to hold the lead. The maximum amount of points any other player can achieve is 205, and Jon Conrad’s lowest scoring tournament this season has given him 45 points. So at 202 points, Conrad can secure the NCA title by either winning the London tournament, or by finishing in the top 3 in St. Jacob’s for the NCA finale. For Brian Cook, he can win his 3rd straight NCA title only if Conrad does not accomplish any of the aforementioned tasks, and he wins the tournament in St. Jacob’s. In fact, if Conrad finishes 4th in St. Jacob’s, and Brian Cook wins in St. Jacob’s, the two will tie for the NCA title.

Fred Slater also has an opportunity to win the NCA title. Currently sitting at 192 points, he can earn up to a maximum of 207 points, and if the opportunity is there, Slater can take the title with one win and one high finish in two of the remaining tournaments. If he can make his way out to BC and performs well, he’ll be even better off heading into the NCA Finale.

With an outside chance of winning the NCA Tour is Ray Beierling. He has 190 points and can earn a maximum of 203. He’ll have to win the London tournament (which he has done 3 of 4 times) and then win in St. Jacob’s while preventing the three players in front of him from earning anymore points. Long odds, but at least he still has a chance.

CrokinoleCentre Rankings

After the Hamilton tournament I took to trying to perfect the ranking system. Before there had been some obvious errors in how the points were tracked. The worst errors were that some top players had been completely off the list. But now the list is much more complete and definitely contains less errors. Here are the top 50 CrokinoleCentre rankings:

Rank	Name	Points
1	Brian Cook	305.5
2	Jon Conrad	298
3	Fred Slater	295
4	Ray Beierling	291.5
5	Jason Beierling	283.5
6	Eric Miltenburg	265.5
7	Louis Gauthier	251
8	Clare Kuepfer	249.5
9	Paul Brubacher	236.5
10	Nathan Walsh	235
11	Matt Brown	233.5
12	Howard Martin	232
13	Justin Slater	230
14	Chris Gorsline	191
15	Kent Robinson	189.5
16	Lawson Lea	189.5
17	Joe Arnup	186.5
18	Tom Johnston	186
19	Dave Brown	173.5
20	Roy Campbell	173.5
21	Rex Johnston	173
22	Rob Mader	160.5
23	Nathan Jongsma	155
24	Ron Haymes	152
25	Greg Matthison	145
26	Tom Doucette	117
27	Wilfred Smith	114.5
28	Quinn Erzinger	113
29	Ed Ripley	104.5
30	Rueben Jongsma	99.5
31	Ron Reesor	99
32	Ed Erzinger	94
33	Denis Chartier	93
34	Brian Wensley	92.5
35	Wayne Gingerich	92
36	Len Chard	87
37	Linda Irvine	84
38	Raymond Kappes	83
39	Adrian Conradi	83
40	Merv Wice	81.5
41	Michael Hughes	80
42	Roger Vaillancourt	80
43	Ryan Hedley	77
44	Jason Hogan	75.5
45	Bill Freeman	74
46	Lou Dobos	73
47	Ray Haymes	70.5
48	Alex Protas	69.5
49	Kevin Bechtel	69.5
50	George Doughart	68

The top 5 still remains unchanged, but both Raymond and Jason Beierling have increased their point totals and are closing in on the top 3. I expect to see the top 5 ranking shift and change after the results come in from the March tournaments. In the latter half of the top 10, Eric Miltenburg, and Louis Gauthier have moved up while Paul Brubacher slides into 9th. Moving up well due to error corrections are Lawson Lea from PEI (16th), Tom Johnston (18th) and Roy Campbell (20th).

Here is a list of the top 50 Singles Only CrokinoleCentre rankings:

1	Brian Cook	305.5
2	Ray Beierling	289.5
3	Jon Conrad	288
4	Jason Beierling	280.5
5	Eric Miltenburg	261
6	Fred Slater	254
7	Paul Brubacher	233
8	Clare Kuepfer	231
9	Louis Gauthier	221
10	Howard Martin	213.5
11	Nathan Walsh	203
12	Justin Slater	154
13	Roy Campbell	153.5
14	Joe Arnup	149.5
15	Kent Robinson	146.5
16	Greg Matthison	145
17	Rob Mader	126.5
18	Matt Brown	109.5
19	Chris Gorsline	106
20	Dave Brown	105.5
21	Lawson Lea	103.5
22	Ron Reesor	99
23	Tom Johnston	94
24	Nathan Jongsma	92.5
25	Rex Johnston	81
26	Rueben Jongsma	79
27	Tom Doucette	76
28	Jason Hogan	75.5
29	Alex Protas	69.5
30	Quinn Erzinger	68
31	Lawrence Wicks	68
32	Wilfred Smith	67.5
33	Jason Carter	65
34	Ron Haymes	59.5
35	Ed Ripley	59.5
36	Len Chard	56
37	Bob Mader	54.5
38	Brian Wensley	53.5
39	Denis Chartier	53
40	Brian Miltenburg	51
41	Merv Wice	50.5
42	Raymond Kappes	50
43	Ed Erzinger	49
44	Roger Vaillancourt	48
45	George Doughart	47
46	Adrian Conradi	45
47	Linda Irvine	41
48	Ab Leitch	39
49	Michael Hughes	39
50	Ryan Hedley	39

Interesting to note, Ray Beierling swaps places with Jon Conrad in 2nd and 3rd, while Paul Brubacher moves into the top 10, all the way up to 7th, as Nathan Walsh falls out of the top 10 to 11th. With an appropriate point score, Roy Campbell now sits 13th.

Coming up in the next few weeks, we’ll get you ready for the London Crokinole Club Tournament, and the BC Provincial Crokinole Championship.

Rematch, Revenge, Raymond

In a rematch of the 2012 London Crokinole Club final, Raymond Beierling met brother Jason Beierling in the finals of the 2013 Golden Horseshoe Crokinole Championship. Jason Beierling won in London a year ago, following an exciting third game tie breaking round. But revenge was in the cards on the day as Raymond Beierling took match in the three games to win his first NCA title of the season.

The day began with 24 competitors at the Cornerstone Reformed Church in Hamilton. A small note was made to start the day that winners of the tournament had historically went on to be successful at the World Championships. (Champions Brian Cook and Justin Slater had won the World title in 2009 and 2010.)

And with that the action was under way. Several 20’s were made on the boards in the preliminary round. It seems as though the Hamilton boards, made by Jake Ruggi, are quite “20 friendly”.

After the first round the top group had emerged from the pack with Ray Beierling, Jason Beierling, Fred Slater, Eric Miltenburg, Jon Conrad, Louis Gauthier, Paul Brubacher and Ron Reesor making the cut.

In the A group round-robin the Beierling brother’s grabbed the number 1 and 2 seeds. That set up semifinal matches of Jason Beierling vs Louis Gauthier and Raymond Beierling vs Jon Conrad. 

Meanwhile, in group C, Jake Ruggi took the top spot in the round-robin and then followed it up by winning his semifinal match over Tom Doucette, who finished 3rd, and then defeating Len Chard in the finals. Kent Robinson grabbed the 4th spot.

In the B group, the Waterloo Crokinole Club grabbed the top 4 positions. After sorting things out in the playoffs, Roy Campbell had claimed the B title, followed by Nathan Walsh, Barry Kiggins and Alex Protas.

It seemed almost destined that the two Beierling brothers would compete in the championship match as Jason Beierling knocked off Louis Gauthier, and Ray Beierling eliminated Jon Conrad. In the 3rd place game Jon Conrad and Louis Gauthier split their first two games, of the best of 3 match, with 6-2 victories each way. That led to drama in the third game, where following Quinte Convention rules, tie breaking rounds were required as the score was tied 4-4 after 4 rounds. But in the tie breaking rounds Louis Gauthier grabbed the advantage and achieved the 3rd place finish.

And in the Championship Finals, an interesting and highly competitive affair began with Ray Beierling cruising to an opening game victory by winning 6-0. Jason Beierling would right the ship though, narrowly avoiding elimination in the second game and forcing a 4-4 tie. And so, following the Quinte Convention, Jason’s only chance of winning the match was to force tie breaking rounds by winning the 3rd game outright. But in the 3rd round of the 3rd game, Ray Beierling prevailed, earning 4 points in the game to win the 2013 Golden Horseshoe Crokinole Tournament.

Footage of the Championship match is now available and you can find it here: