An Okotoks athlete is teaming up with an Australian and a pair of Americans to play in a world championship. Unlike his teammates, he only has to travel 23km to do it.
Okotoks’ Dave Crucq is part of a four-man team competing in the International Shuffleboard Association Championships in High River June 15-20. The world championships will have 24 teams representing 10 countries.
“I’m playing on what they call a ‘United Nations’ team,” Crucq said. “I really don’t know them at all, all I have seen is their names. But they have to be good players.”
He was selected after applying with the Canadian National Shuffleboard Association.
The four-man team format has each player playing another player from another team in a singles match. After the round robin the number of wins are counted to determine which teams qualify for the playoffs. Although on a team, Crucq plays solo, there is no rotating of shots like curling for example.
“My goal is to win every game I play, but the chances of that happening are slim – there are a lot of good players,” he said while smiling. “I usually win more games than I lose, but this is my first international tournament.”
The game consists of 16 frames. A frame has the opponents alternating four shots each, with the totals being added up after each frame. They are shooting a disc out of a shuffleboard stick at a 6ft.by 9ft. triangle target about 30 feet away. Within that triangle are scoring zones of 10, 8 and 7 while at the very back is “the kitchen”. If a player’s disc is in the kitchen at the end of the frame, he or she is deducted 10 points.
There’s plenty of strategy.
“You can hit them [your opponent’s disk], you can go around them, you can tap them up, tap them sideways, you can tap them into the kitchen,” Crucq said. “Or you can mistakenly put yourself in the kitchen, which isn’t a good thing.”
Crucq is the only player in the tournament from the Foothills.
Ken Wardley, a member of the Foothills Shuffleboard Association based in High River, said Curcq will represent Foothills and Canada well.
“He’s a very good player,” Wardley said. “His strength is concentration, focus and determination.”
Crucq said focus is the key to shuffleboard.
“If you lose focus while you are playing, it’s over,” he said.
The 70-year-old Crucq has found shuffleboard helps scratch his competitive itch.
“I played baseball, soccer, squash, curling and what I like about shuffleboard is that whether if you win or you lose, it is never anybody’s fault but your own,” Crucq said. “In curling you can always blame the third — in this game the only person you can credit or blame is yourself.”
He’s a latecomer to the sport.
“I started about five years ago — I was in High River and we were driving around and we saw this Snodgrass Arena and we somehow got in the curling rink and there were all these people with these sticks and shooting this thing down the floor,” Crucq said with a laugh. “I came down, tried it and played ever since.”
The Foothills Association submitted their bid for the championships more than two years ago.
“It’s almost like bidding for the Olympics – we were up against two states, North Carolina and Wisconsin,” Wardley said. “The executive of the ISA overwhelmingly supported High River.”
It will be the first time the event has been held in western Canada.
The tournament will be at the Bob Snodgrass Arena. The countries participating are, Australia, Brazil, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Vietnam, the United States and Canada.
For more information go to highriverfsa.ca
