15-2, 15-4 and so much more Crib appeal still thrives in our veterans’ halls, whether for camaraderie or competition By: David Sanderson Posted: 3:00 AM CST Friday, Nov. 10, 2023 Last Modified: 1:51 PM CST Friday, Nov. 10, 2023 Updates

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This article was published 10/11/2023 (1031 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Royal Canadian Legion branches from coast to coast will host Remembrance Day services on Saturday, and once all the speeches, prayers and moments of silence are through, members and guests will likely commiserate over a cold one, and a round or three of what’s been called the “greatest pastime.”

Over time, cribbage, a two-, three- or four-person game that combines a standard deck of playing cards, coloured pegs and a distinctive scorekeeping board, has become as synonymous with this country’s veterans’ halls as affordable suds and meat draws.

Here in Winnipeg, so-called crib nights are staged at one branch or another Monday through Friday, and routinely draw crowds of people well versed in terminology such as dime, muggins and stink hole.

Susan Dokken has been running Tuesday night cribbage get-togethers at the Transcona Legion since 2005.

While she isn’t certain how long the game, which was immortalized in the Charles Dickens novel The Old Curiosity Shop, has been a part of the furniture at her home branch, she can state for a fact her late parents started playing cribbage there on a weekly basis over 50 years ago.

She can also tell you that weathered wooden crib boards and multiple decks of cards have been kept behind the bar seemingly forever, available to anyone in the mood for a quick pickup game.

It isn’t uncommon for guys and gals to pop in to watch a Jets game, she says, only to commence playing crib and, for the next several hours, neglect to glance up from their hands to catch the score.

“My dad owned a billiards hall in Transcona, and he and my mom taught me how to play (crib) when I was maybe five years old, to help me learn how to add,” Dokken says on a recent Tuesday night, when two dozen people have braved wet, slippery roads to spend three hours at the legion netting points for pairs, runs and card combinations adding up to 15, on their way to acquiring 121 points, in total.

“People say it’s a game of skill, and that the more you play, the better you get. To me, there’s still a lot of luck involved. I mean, if you don’t have the right cards, there’s not too much you can do.”

“People say it’s a game of skill, and that the more you play, the better you get. To me, there’s still a lot of luck involved. I mean, if you don’t have the right cards, there’s not too much you can do.”–Susan Dokken

Kaden Smith, 17, chuckles when asked what he’s doing seated at a table with people three and four times his age, playing a game that was invented in the 16th century by an Englishman named Sir John Suckling.

(Suckling, a poet, allegedly made a small fortune at cribbage by gifting marked decks of cards to aristocrats, before challenging them to a match.)

Smith credits his mother for introducing him to cribbage when he was still in grade school. Because he always preferred card games and board games over the video variety, he began pestering her to bring him with her to the legion on Tuesday nights, following his 16th birthday.

“Crib suits me perfectly because I like to think I have a brain for math,” he says, between sips of root beer. “Usually I can look at my cards and know right off whether my hand is good or not.

“Here we play in (two-person) teams, so it does matter what my partner does, but I still manage to win more than I lose.”

Thursday evenings have been reserved for cribbage at the Fort Garry Legion for decades, first at its original location at 1125 Pembina Hwy., and again at its present home at 762 Pembina Hwy., where it moved to, two years ago.

On a recent Thursday, a member named Dave (last name withheld) offered a theory as to why legions adopted cribbage as one of their regular activities, versus, say, Scrabble or tiddlywinks.

“The way I understand it, crib was very popular among soldiers during the First World War, when they would be stuck in trenches for days on end, and had little to do besides playing cards,” he says.

“So when legions came along (in 1925), it was only natural that the soldiers returning home continued to play a game they’d come to enjoy.”

Dennis Belanger is the Fort Garry legion’s volunteer “crib master.” Every Thursday he begins registering as many as 50 players at 6:30 p.m. sharp.

Each participant forks over a $10 entry fee, with all of the proceeds going to those who place first, second and third, based on the results of that evening’s games, eight on average.

Because each game has a roughly 15-minute time limit — at that juncture, players switch tables to start anew against a different opponent — it’s rare for somebody green to the game to sign up, Belanger says, introducing a regular he jokingly (?) refers to as Cheating Bob, as he “tries to sneak in extra points, here and there.”

“Like most of the other legions, we play in teams of two and since there’s money on the line, your partner is probably going to hope you know what you’re doing,” Belanger continues.

“There’s a lady here whose usual partner had knee surgery a while back, and she needed somebody to play with. I convinced my daughter-in-law to join her, only she was so intimidated by the skill level, she said she was never coming back.”

Belanger, whose grandfather taught him cribbage at age 10, says some of the people who show up at the Fort Garry legion every Thursday like clockwork try their luck at other legions, as well, including the Norwood branch, which hosts a crib night on Wednesdays, and the Henderson legion, which, like Transcona, holds a gathering on Tuesdays.

Some simply can’t play often enough, he says, while others are fine tuning their game, with an eye on a provincial cribbage tournament scheduled for February at the Charleswood legion.

Finish strong there, and they’ll move on to the Royal Canadian Legion’s national championship, which is being held in New Brunswick, in April 2024.

Lyndon Demers used to play crib regularly on Tuesday nights, at an army, navy and air force veterans’ club on Wilton Street. His work schedule changed around this time last year and suddenly, Tuesdays were out of the question.

He attended crib nights at other legions for a few months, except he didn’t particularly enjoy the monetary aspect that was involved. Not only did the entry fees add up, a few times he’d be chatting with his table mates about a movie he’d viewed that week, or a new restaurant he’d visited, only to be met with silence, and instructions to concentrate on the proceedings at hand.

Anticipating there were others like him who would enjoy a casual game of cribbage over a beverage and a bite to eat, he approached the managers of the Heather Curling Club on Youville Street in February, to inquire about reserving a section of their second-floor dining area for crib nights. They were amenable to the idea.

Demers started advertising Lyndon’s Cribbage Group on Facebook the first week of March. He drew two dozen people to his inaugural get-together, later that month.

Since then, the 35-year-old has staged free-of-charge cribbage nights there every second Wednesday, save for the summer months, when the facility is closed.

“I find it’s largely the same group of people returning every two weeks, which I take as a sign that I’m doing something right,” Demers says. “Some come as couples, some arrive with a friend or neighbour and others show up on their own.

“It’s a really welcoming atmosphere, whether you’re new to the game or have been playing since you were a kid. Everybody is here to have fun.”

Clint Garner, a retiree who has fond memories of playing cribbage with his grandmother as a six-year-old, back when he was permitted to stay up late drinking tea and munching on sugar cookies, was one of close to 30 people who showed up at the Heather on a recent Wednesday evening.

He generally plays cribbage with his wife and their friends in the comfort of their home, he says, only he was curious to see how he would fare against people outside his immediate circle.

“It’s also a cheap night out,” he adds. “We’ll see how things go, but if I end up having fun — which I fully expect to — I don’t see why I wouldn’t be back, most Wednesday nights.”

Seconds before he sounds a horn to announce that play for the evening has begun, Demers, who has the space from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., points to a table occupied by four first-time attendees, all of whom appear to be barely out of their teens.

“That’s the sort of thing I really love to see,” he says. “It means the game still appeals to younger people, and that’s who we’ll need to keep it alive, so to speak.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca