Winnipeg proves the point old shuffleboard champions never die

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This article was published 07/11/2015 (3900 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cynthia Chudyk-Collins might be the most decorated Manitoba athlete you’ve never heard of.

The 2015 Canadian Shuffleboard Championships were held in Winnipeg in October. Over the course of five days, teams from across the country competed in five separate groupings. When the sawdust settled, Chudyk-Collins had placed first in three categories, upping her career totals to five national championships and 28 provincial titles.

“I started playing (shuffleboard) when I was 17,” says Chudyk-Collins, 49, who took home gold in ladies’ singles, ladies’ doubles (with teammate Mona Sarrasin) and mixed doubles (with Harvey Groleau). “My boyfriend and I used to go to the Winnipegosis Motor Inn on Friday nights and play other couples for $2 a game. He used to drink his winnings while I used to pocket mine.”

Chudyk-Collins joined the Manitoba Shuffleboard Association — the organization behind last month’s tourney — in 1994. This week, the MSA kicked off its 41st year in existence with a slate of matches at its chief digs — John Osborn ANAF Unit #1 at 1395 Ellice Ave.

“We play here (at John Osborn) or at (Anavets Assiniboia Unit #283),” says MSA president Wendy Popkes, the 1999 Canadian ladies’ singles champ. “Come April, after our league playoffs are over, we host an open tournament for anybody who lives in Manitoba to determine who goes to the nationals.”

Popkes, 57, is seated next to Groleau, 61, and Mike Jacoby, 59.

When asked about the league’s demographic, age-wise, she laughs and says, “You’re looking at ’em.”

(No spring chicken itself, shuffleboard has been around since the 15th century. It was originally called “shovel ha’ penny,” presumably because competitors used to slide coins from one end of the table to the other, as opposed to steel weights.)

Jacoby and Groleau have dominated Canadian men’s shuffleboard for more than three decades. The duo has won the Canadian men’s doubles title an unprecedented eight times, including the 2015 championship.

Jacoby was a Grade 12 student at Glenlawn Collegiate when he tried his hand — make that his thumb; everybody we chatted with delivers rocks with that digit, exclusively — at shuffleboard for the first time at the Niakwa Motor Hotel (now the Travelodge) on Alpine Avenue.

“Back then, they had this bar that was a German beer hall, complete with an oom-pah-pah band,” says Jacoby, referring to the legendary Zum Brauhaus, former home of Resi “the Bavarian Bombshell” Dux and the Happy Wanders Band. “My buddy and I had a spare at the same time every Friday so we’d head there for a beer or two. It didn’t take long until we were playing shuffleboard for money against all these old-timers.”

Jacoby caught on to the game fairly quickly. One afternoon, in a bid to improve his skill level, he asked one of the guys he was up against where the best players in town hung out. The fellow told him to head to the King’s Motor Hotel on Higgins Avenue.

“It wasn’t rough and tough at all,” Jacoby says after one of his table-mates mutters “nice place” with a hint of sarcasm. “It’s a bit dive-y looking now, I suppose, but in the ’70s, it was full of everyday guys who worked at Ogilvie Mills, who would hook up to play shuffleboard when their shifts were over.”

Soon, Jacoby was taking on all comers at other shuffleboard hotbeds around town — watering holes such as the Balmoral Motor Hotel (now the New Balmoral Hotel), the Nicollet Inn, the Westbrook Inn and the Winnipeg Hotel.

“I’d go to one place and if there was a lineup (to play) I’d jump back in the car and drive somewhere else. Practically every bar in town had what we call a long table — that’s 16 feet (4.8 metres) — at the time,” Jacoby says. “I’d start playing at 11 a.m. every Saturday morning and stay right till closing time. My parents couldn’t quite understand it. It was like a disease, almost, I liked to play so much.”

Jacoby’s longtime colleague took up shuffleboard in 1971. His first match was at the Princess Hotel in Transcona.

“The person who got me started was my older sister,” says Groleau, dressed in the Manitoba side’s official uniform — a black polo shirt with gold accents. “Most of my buddies were shooting pool but after giving (shuffleboard) a try, I was hooked right away.”

Groleau acknowledges shuffleboard has a bit of reputation as a beer-fuelled pastime. He has also heard comments along the lines of shuffleboard being the type of activity where you have to be lucky to be good.

“You get that from time to time, sure, but I can guarantee you guys who play once in a blue moon will never beat guys like me and Mike, no matter how many times they try. I don’t want it to sound like I’m bragging but I’ve probably shot three million pucks in my life. So yeah, I like to think I know what I’m doing when I’m up there.”

To demonstrate his proficiency, Groleau takes a single rock and places it at one end of the table, standing it up on its side as opposed to its base. Then he reaches into his pocket for a dime. He stands the coin on its edge, as well, so that it is leaning — ever so slightly — against the shuffleboard rock.

“One of the ways I used to practise was by throwing rocks and shaving that dime off while leaving the (shuffleboard) rock untouched,” he says, demonstrating his technique for a scribe whose expression screams, “I’ve gotta see this.”

Groleau’s talent is impressive — there’s no doubt about that — but the real trick, everybody agrees, is to make shuffleboard appealing to a young audience again.

“It’s not like they don’t enjoy it,” Jacoby says. “I have a full-size table in my basement and when my kids were in their teens, they’d invite their friends over to watch movies and end up playing shuffleboard all night instead.”

“VLTs were the real killer,” Groleau opines. “When those things came out, all the bars that used to have shuffleboard tables got rid of them, to make room for the gamblers. So now it’s just the Legions, pretty much, where you get a chance to play.”

“Saskatchewan has some younger players but here, unfortunately, it does seem to be a bit of a dying sport,” Popkes pipes in. “And that’s really too bad because it is such a fabulous game.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca