Sunday, May 11, 2008

Crokinole love

My lovely wife Sue just returned from a two and a half week trip to Ontario, Canada for a conference of Mennonite pastors. When I collected her from Gatwick she had a mysterious package with her which turned out to be a truly wonderful gift for me - a Crokinole board! As you already know, Crokinole originated among the Mennonites of Ontario, so Sue was right in the heart of Crokinole country, and she bought my board direct from the workshop of Willard Martin where it was made.

We've had a lot of fun playing this already, although Sue beats me every time, having been intensively coached (I allege) by Canadian Mennonites while she was away. It's great - it's like having a pool table in the house, without having to build an extension to put it in.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I strongly suggest also having a look at Carrom. It is a wee bit less confrontational than Crokinole (I play Crokinole as a very zero-sum game) but Carrom also rewards skill shots more both in sinking coins and creating difficult snooker positions for your opponent. I look at Crokinole as the more approachable party game of the two and Carrom as the marginally more focusses and skill-based game -- which still has newbies sitting down and flicking for a great time.

Until I played Carrom, Crokinole was my disc flicking game of choice. Now Carrom wins that title hands down. We have a Carrom board at work -- it has been in constantly play for weeks now, easily seeing a dozen games played every day.