Why this tiny P.E.I. community is 'crazy' about crokinole

Lawson Lea lines up the little wooden disk, curls his index finger and flicks it toward the centre of the crokinole board.

Just missed.

"Some days I'm pretty good," he said with smile.

Lea is one of dozens of players at the Circle Club in St. Peter's Bay, P.E.I., where crokinole appears to be making a comeback.

Members of the Circle Club play in St. Peters Bay on Tuesdays, and some players even travel to other communities during the rest of the week. And new faces keep showing up, said organizer Jan Barnes.

"There are a lot of people here that have never played for years since they were kids and they sit down here and they're just crazy about it," she said.

How crazy?

"One woman said she'd leave her husband if he wouldn't let her play," Barnes joked.

That kind of fun atmosphere fills the room. It's noisy, with cheers for the good shots, groans for bad, and lots of laughing in between.

"We're all about making goofy mistakes and putting the checker in for the other team and all those kinds of stupid things that you do in any sport," Barnes said.

World championships in Ontario

Some of the players are quite serious. Lea, from Vernon River, has been to the world championships in Ontario six times.

"Usually 10 or 12 people from the Island go up each year in June," he said. "There's about 400 people go there from all over — Germany, Scotland, Texas, western Canada."

It's no surprise to Barnes that crokinole — Canada's original board game, believed to have been invented in Ontario in the 1870s — is so popular.

"It doesn't require a lot of skill. It doesn't require a lot of physical ability," she said. "Anybody that has use of their hands can play. Even with arthritis, you just have to learn to do different moves."

The game itself is pretty simple to learn. You have an octagonal wooden board, and wooden disks — called checkers. You flick the checker with a finger, trying to knock the other player's checker off the board, while leaving yours on as close to the centre as possible.

Appeals to children, as well

"We all play the same way, so if you come here or you go to Hunter River, it's the same game," Barnes said.

Another plus is that you don't need the internet or have to stare at a screen to play the game. It appeals to children as well as seniors. 

"There are young juniors that play, eight to 12 years old," Barnes said. "But if you were at the provincial competition, you would find very young kids there. I guess as long as they can behave themselves and concentrate on the game, they're old enough."

The Circle Club may be small compared to some of the bigger venues the players visit, but what it lacks in size, it makes up in spirit.

And though it's always fun to win, the players all come for the same things — "the support, the camaraderie, the friendliness."

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