The annual American Legion Shuffleboard Champions were announced on Saturday, March 29, 2014 at a celebration and closing dinner at the Legion. The 8 teams and 13 subs began the tournament shortly after the New Year and continued for 7 weeks, competing Friday evenings through March 7.
The teams were Patty Cook and Alex Willams; Joe Rogan and Matt Skinner; Louis Horn and Gail Cypherd; Kristen Peterson and Christine Rogan; Susie Allen and Paul Evans; Jill Rogan and Aaron Rice; Kenny Ahman and Ace Ahrens, and Jen Sanger and Di Shillo. Players’ substitutes were JR Edwards, Bronya Shillo, Aaron Lusker, Eric Giles, Don Murray, Mason Horn, Ryan Rodd, Tom Shillo, Austin McPhail, Zach Hoch, Joe Brock, Ben Eggleton and Greg Brimecombe. Other volunteer subs included Trudi Edwards, David Burnham, Karen Lamb, Bill Bloethe and Heather Burnham.
This year’s awards went to:
1st Place: Patty Cook and Alex Willams
Most Improved Player: Alex Willams
A delicious home cooked meal began with Patty, Jen and Susie’s hors d’oeuvres. Dinner included Lou’s lobster bisque, Jill’s beef tenderloin, Gail’s potatoes, Di’s Caesar salad, tortellini pasta, and was complete with Kristen and Christine’s yummy desserts and Gail’s famous cookies. Appropriately, the men were assigned to set up and the clean up.
After dinner, the team players exchanged ‘gag gifts’ as they had pulled each others’ names from a hat – a tradition initiated by Joe Rogan several years ago – and all played a 4 on 4 team game of shuffleboard.
Shuffleboard tournaments began on Fishers Island in the late 1950’s when the American Legion purchased the table. It was originally placed in the bar room with a coin operated scoreboard. Refurbished about 8 years ago, the table is appreciated by experts as being one of very few original American Shuffleboard Company tables built in the early 1950’s and still in continual use. Running 22’ in length and weighing over 950 pounds, the table is a main focal point in the Legion’s hall. To decrease friction, the table is sprinkled with tiny beads of silicone. Acting like ball bearings, the beads let the quoits (pucks) slide down the table with only a slight push.
If you are interested in playing in next winter’s tournament, or helping with the table’s next refurbishing effort, please contact Kristen Peterson or Jill Rogan.
Object of the Game:
The object of the game is to push one’s weighted quoits down a shuffleboard table into the scoring area at the opposite end of the table. In table shuffleboard games, shooting is performed with one’s hands as opposed to deck shuffleboard’s use of cue sticks. In order to score, a player’s quoits must be farther down the board than the quoits of his opponent. This may be achieved either by knocking off the opponent’s quoits or by out-distancing them. The game ends when a player or team reaches 21 points.
