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Calgary & Edmonton & Vancouver & TSAC
| Topic: Need help with Canada info for foos book |
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I've received the following email from Kathy Brainard, who's writing another book and asking for information about canada can anyone help with the following? HISTORY OF TABLE SOCCER IN YOUR COUNTRY: 1. When and how was table soccer first introduced in your country? What were the early popular tables and how has that changed over the years? Please write one or two paragraphs on separate paper. If helpful, fill in the boxes below: Earliest tables: date????? brand name/manufacturer location/city 2. What are the most popular table brands today? As best as you can, describe the current prevalent style of play. Please write one or two paragraphs on separate paper. If helpful, fill in the boxes below: Current tables: brand name/manufacturer?????????????????????????????? 3. National Legends: Please name two or three of the early influential people of table soccer—players, promoters, or manufacturers--in your country. Describe their contributions to the development of table soccer in your country. 4. History of major league and/or tournament competitions: On separate paper, please list events beginning with the most recent, and continuing back in history to the oldest recorded important competitions. This list should contain your National Champions as well as other important titles. Use as much space as you need to list the following information for each competition:1)Event Name, Location and Date; 2)Table brand; 3)Top 4 finishers in the highest levels (Open or Pro) for Men, Women, Mixed, Youth, or League Team. 5. Table Soccer Today Please describe the status of the sport of table soccer in your country today. Tell us about any special things or interesting facts about table soccer in your country. You may write on separate paper or use the space below: |
Posted: May 7 2007 1:20AM
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oh, and also she's asking for: CURRENT HIGHEST NATIONALLY RANKED PLAYERS Top Twenty Men: Top Twenty Women: we dont have a national ranking system, so any ideas on either what ranking system we should use (like USTSA?) or otherwise? |
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As long as I am ranked #1 (which is correct), does it really matter who else is in the top 20? |
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does she need me for the cover shoot. you can't have a book about foosball without me or mitch on the cover.does she want the book to be #1 on the new york times bestsellers list or does she want it to go straight to paperback and sold in the half price bargain bins at chapters. |
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So, Mitch on cover --> #1 on NY Times list. Robbie on cover --> Bargain bins. |
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no ,more like me on the cover outselling all of the Harry Potter books combined including the movies and action figures. |
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I love "Robbies Fishbowl of Life", it's so entertaining. |
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Can anyone help with points #1, #3 and #4 - the rest i can fill in, but those point i wouldnt mind some help from some people that know the history of the game here in Canada better than I. Please??!!!? |
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Well When I started the only players that people really talked about were... Mitch Jang Pete Vicze Steve Rix There were others from Alberta I know but these are who the locals talked about. The other player from BC that made an impression in Alberta when he went to tournaments there was Shane Chow. |
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ok thanks peter - thats an awesome start. |
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On a sad note, Steve Rix's companion was killed by Pickton. For stories and such it would be best to contact Mitch or better yet Vicze. As for tournaments you know that since the mid eighties Ken and I have been the only promoters to hold tournaments of any size in BC. Also we were the first to bring in the Tornado table into Canada, it wasn't an easy sell at first because of the non-pinability of it. There was a former Player Mike Miller that ran an arcade in Richmond for a while, he was a great goalie, and teacher, ...he had a glass top Tornado that had the VERY old square footed man. He played in the last Chicago TS tournament I believe with Jocko and Nick Jang from Vancouver. Heard stories of the TS money they received :) I remember a funny story of them riding in this Van to Chicago and somewhere along the way their wood bumper caught on fire. But for some reason I think I'm mixing up stories with the chess player now in Edmonton (whatshisnameagain?) my memory is so bad these days lol. Reid Abel, Gary Burghardt, Brian Leopky, Chris Steele are a few players who played before I started and could help you out. |
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Best Pin-shot...Mitch, Jocko Best Push-kick...Reid Best Five-bar...Ricks Best Pull-shot...Blue hair Eric, Gerry, Moya... Best Defensive Goalie...Vicze Best Roll-over...??? Just my opinion, not that it matters  . |
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Reids push kick haha ask him if he can beat my straight race . also I was going to mention pete tielens and ken woldeer are pretty much the founders in bc from as far as I can remember so they have to be in the book. and how about this for the cover of the book? A big fish bowl with me and mitch playing a foosball finals in singles and tuan on the outside of the fish bowl lookin in, while munching on some popcorn of pizza pops. |
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I think Pete and Mitch are about the only players that we may be able to find that can fill in some of the early background. I think the furthest back that anyone will be able to trace organized foos in Western Canada would be to the TS era. Before TS there were "Italian" tables around (e.g. on Commercial Drive), but as far as I know there were no organized tournaments. I started playing at the very end of the TS era in the early 1980's. By then there were tournaments and decent sized clusters of players in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Kamloops. The first tournaments I played were at the University of Calgary in 1981 or 82, one in Edmonton around 82 or 83 and then a couple in Kamloops. (Kamloops had some of the most regular tournaments at the time. They ran them during "Spoolmak Days" and could draw players from Vancouver and Alberta. The players that Pete mentioned were the most established players at the time, along with Joey and MacCarty (?) from Edmonton I recall hearing that the last "Canadian" Champion (from just before I started)was a pull shooter from Edmonton. Brian should be able to fill in come gaps for Alberta. There was also a good mixed doubles team (Mike and Sandy????) from Kamloops. I believe they won (or at least placed very highly) in a couple of the big TS tournaments in the states. Dave Sordi is the only person I can think of that might be able to fill in their names and if there was anyone else of note from Kamloops. In the early 1980's, promoters started up and ran some tournaments in Vernon and Nelson as well. Nelson ran a series of qualifiers (3-4?)and then had a playoff for a trip to the infamous Chicago tourny. I believe that Steve Rix was second, losing to a big name team from Washington, possibly Dave McWeeny (sp?) and Macacow (sp???). John.....help me out here? Thats about all I can remember from TS days (Alzheimers?). I have been meaning to try to get hold of Pete, and might be able to contact Dave as well. After TS .....well thats another post. |
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I think Pete and Mitch are about the only players that we may be able to find that can fill in some of the early background. I think the furthest back that anyone will be able to trace organized foos in Western Canada would be to the TS era. Before TS there were "Italian" tables around (e.g. on Commercial Drive), but as far as I know there were no organized tournaments. I started playing at the very end of the TS era in the early 1980's. By then there were tournaments and decent sized clusters of players in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Kamloops. The first tournaments I played were at the University of Calgary in 1981 or 82, one in Edmonton around 82 or 83 and then a couple in Kamloops. (Kamloops had some of the most regular tournaments at the time. They ran them during "Spoolmak Days" and could draw players from Vancouver and Alberta. The players that Pete mentioned were the most established players at the time, along with Joey and MacCarty (?) from Edmonton I recall hearing that the last "Canadian" Champion (from just before I started)was a pull shooter from Edmonton. Brian should be able to fill in come gaps for Alberta. There was also a good mixed doubles team (Mike and Sandy????) from Kamloops. I believe they won (or at least placed very highly) in a couple of the big TS tournaments in the states. Dave Sordi is the only person I can think of that might be able to fill in their names and if there was anyone else of note from Kamloops. In the early 1980's, promoters started up and ran some tournaments in Vernon and Nelson as well. Nelson ran a series of qualifiers (3-4?)and then had a playoff for a trip to the infamous Chicago tourny. I believe that Steve Rix was second, losing to a big name team from Washington, possibly Dave McWeeny (sp?) and Macacow (sp???). John.....help me out here? Thats about all I can remember from TS days (Alzheimers?). I have been meaning to try to get hold of Pete, and might be able to contact Dave as well. After TS .....well thats another post. |
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ooops |
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I actually have heard from Chris Fulker? and others talk of tournaments in Trail that were a big draw and that Kamloops took over afterwards. Then there was the PNE tournaments and actually Bill Goode made a reference to them in one of her interviews. I know Mitch had played in at least one of those. |
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oooops again....thanks Pete....the qualifiers and playoff for Chicago were in Trail (NOT Nelson). |
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The incomplete sentence above about a BIll Goode reference to the PNE tournaments of old. At the end of one of Moya's foosball segments the weatherman and Tamara Stanners? started to Rip each other about who was better at foos. Bill Goode said something about it reminds him of the tournaments at the PNE. |
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Hey, just checking in here and saw this thread. I saw my first table in Rossland (near Trail) in '72 -- an Italian table. They had been in Trail for a while before then (big Italian community there). Deutscher Meisters came in around '74 or so. Trail had some great bar players. I used to play at Moby's Foosball Emporium in Rossland from about '74 to '76. In the last century, not the one before. Maybe I can find a picture. I hosted an invitational tournament at University of Lethbridge in 1975, against Selkirk College (Castlegar, but they were all Rossland and Trail players). But it was a boondoggle where a friend of mine scammed the Selkirk College sports department into sponsoring what was essentially a party trip.  |
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Eric, You should talk with Greg Ustina. He has been playing since the early seventies. He could give you some info on the tables, TS Tour in Canada and the players back then. Also Lee Murray. He was one of the best in Canada back in the early days. |
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Yeah it was Greg I was thinking about... I think it was Greg who was an occupant of the Van that went to Chicago whicht the wood bumper caught on fire. He and Richard also abbandoned a van on the way to the Victoria ferry after it broke down, of course after they spent the night in it. I asked them about it later and said they never claimed it. :) |
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Back in the late 90's silvester and myself were the best players in North Battleford. Dynamo style but still the best! That should make honorable mention in the book. |
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Wow - a lot of memories on this thread! When I started playing downtown Vancouver tournaments sometime around 1980 (after playing at UBC with Chris Fulker (my goalie), Dave Burt (pullshot), Perry Mielke (Dave's goalie), Robin Bridges (pull), Wayne Carten (pull), Erik Lindholm (pull, pushkick, goalie), Kevin Ho(?), John Borbely (backpin?) etc.) the big names in Vancouver included: Keith Bonner (pullshot), Steve Rix (backpin), Eric Shimmen (Steve's goalie), Darryl Ketter (pullkick), Pete Vicze (goalie to all top players at some point), Steve LaRocque (pull), Don McEwen (pullkick), Jamie Deptuck (backpin), Jim Trotter (pullshot), Dave Dunbar (goalie). And they were joined shortly after by Nick Jang (backpin), Jocko Cujko (backpin), and everybody was dominated by Mitch Jang (backpin) immediately when he showed up around 1980. For Alberta players, the ones I recall seeing in Kamloops included Lee Murray (pushkick), Tracy ? (backpin), Doug McCarthy (Tracy's goalie and near pro-level hockey player), Bob Ferris (backpin), Greg Ustina (backpin?). The top (only?) Kamloops team was Mike Jaccard (pull) and Bill Halina (Mike's goalie, and owner of the arcade, named The Challenge (I think)). There was an East Indian guy in Kamloops with a big reputation, I think they called him Sukdeep, but I don't know if I ever saw him. Darryl Ketter ended up in Kamloops (UBC Forestry(?) student who graduated and then worked in Kamloops), he was an incredible talent, a pullkick arm like steel, but always played forward for a friend of his that was not near the level of goalie he could have managed to attract. My friends and I would watch in awe at Steve Rix's pin shot. Before Mitch came on the scene and dominated him, though. Mitch's backpin was far better than Jocko's and Nick's, due to his ability to pick the hole and create holes. I played one of the tournaments at the PNE, I think in March 1980, it was a $10,000 Tournament Soccer tour stop, I believe I still have my Amateur Singles first place trophy! My first breakthrough, I remember people being suprised that I had won. I played doubles with Greg Dove, but since I was at a junior level at that point, I don't know who finished at the top in the Open events. I know there were a number of American players. I think Mt. St. Helens blew up a bit after that tournament. My first big tournament was also around 1980, in Portland, Oregon, (Multnomah County something building) - 11 of us in two hotel rooms, 200 tables, saw Loffredo (a teenager?), Horton, Wiswell/Furry, Rick Martin (my inspiration for switching to the pushkick from the pullshot/backpin). Very cool. Dillinger's nightclub was the big foosball hotspot, where I met most of these top players. Gerry and I first met there, I think he was a promising player who used to drop in whenever he was down from Vernon. When I returned to Vancouver and started playing foosball again around 1989, I remember being shocked that people were talking about Gerry as if he were a good player  Dillinger's was wonderful, right around 1980. A loud disco with steady all-night foosball action, so many teams waiting to play that they had to use a chalkboard, there wasn't enough room for the quarters on the table. So much fun ... Dillinger's had leagues, with pools at different skill levels, and teams would move up and down depending on how they did in their own pool. I used to play there three nights a week with leagues during the week and playing Friday and Saturday nights, taking the bus down there from UBC with Chris Fulker, usually. We were both UBC students at the time, and this didn't help my grades much. I think Chris actually was playing goalie for Steve Rix around that time. Wonderful times, I absolutely loved it. UBC had a tournament every year, and the top two teams from Calgary's university would play the top two teams from UBC, alternating locati |
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Ha! I had forgotten all about the chalkboard. Mike Miller also owned a poolhall in Richmond where he ran local tournies. Rix and i got first in dubs defeating Mitch and Vicze, i got first in singles defeating Mitch  . I just ran upstairs to check the dates on the trophies and that was in 1983. (Mitch still refuses to acknowledge it happened)Jim Pattison owned Pie in the Sky in Burnaby and that was also a very popular foos spot. |
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Gerry wrote: <There was also a good mixed doubles team (Mike and Sandy????) from Kamloops. I believe they won (or at least placed very highly) in a couple of the big TS tournaments in the states. Dave Sordi is the only person I can think of that might be able to fill in their names and if there was anyone else of note from Kamloops. > That's the same Mike that I mentioned, Mike Jaccard. He and she were married, I played with him at their house in Kamloops a couple of times when I lived in Williams Lake in the mid 80s and would go to exotic Kamloops for a big-city weekend(!). I honestly don't remember her name, she didn't play with us at all, didn't seem interested. In the late 80s I attended Cariboo College in Kamloops for a year, and played football (right, football with a T) with Mike's brother, Steve Jaccard. I wasn't even playing foosball at that time, so I never looked into it. I don't recall running across a table anywhere, either. |
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On the History of Canadian Foosball My name is Greg Ustina and I have been playing foosball in Canada for several decades. The first table I saw in the Edmonton region was back in the mid-sixties. It was a dutchmiester that was part of an arcade that was traveling with the exhibition rides that came to town every summer during K-Days. Later on in the early seventies I played on a variety of cheap tables until finally some semblance of organized foos appeared on a Garlando at the U of A in my first year, 74-75. There we players met in SUB every day to bash away at each other. I suspect it had started at least the year before because we newcomers were fortunate enough to have some very good competition. For example “Dick Tracy” shooting a “set shot” from the two bar, (pulls from the 1 man !?), and his forward shooting push kicks. “Set shot” is the term we used back then to describe what we would now call a “series”. Finally by spring my partner Richard Trost and I could beat Dick Tracy and thinking we were the best in town set off in search of competition. We found a TS Green Top at the west-end Snooker Shack and that was sweet.. We were lucky because as Richard, Trost, Torbin Jenson, myself and others in the west end formed one group of players, there was another group in the north end, Lee Murry, Bob Farris, and Dale Trynchuck, and friends. A rivalry was born, which not only fed the skill levels of Edmonton players but in time fed the promotion of foos in Canada. The real Father of Foos in Canada is Lee Murry. He was the one who in 74 or 75 grabbed a kid named Bob Farris and dragged him off to the States to play in a foosball tournament. While he was there Lee immediately got the knickname “Backhand” because he played his left hand flipped around the wrong way on the 5-bar, such that he could shoot wrist shots and the like. Lee was constantly teaching others how to play and encouraging them. Also Lee was an excellent spokesmen for Canadian foosball in the States. He met with TS owner Lee Peppard several times, introducing other Canadians to him and promoting the idea of TS coming up into Canada and throwing a few tourneys up here. I remember at the 76 Nationals in Minneapolis there were something like a dozen players from Edmonton (the burnt bumper trip of which I have pictures ect.) The large number of Canadians there was not only due to Lee Murry’s leadership but more importantly caught the attention of Lee Peppard and the TS organization. The first major tourament in Edmonton was just a local 500 dollar event held at Hi-Spot Billiards and was co-directed by Bob Farris and myself. Bob beat Lee in the finals electing to take Lee by surprise by rejecting the slow and methodical “wall pass---pull shot” game usually played and just play “rocket ball” against Lee in the tourny.. It was played on TS Blue Tops. About a year later there was a company that sprung up called Leisure World that promoted foos. They started in an old supermarket, the biggest arcade I have ever seen in my life. At one point they had a tourny every night of the week at any of about five different locations. They started with TS Blue tops but shifted to Premier Blue Tops. Early on they threw a 1500 tourny but made a typical mistake. The mixed event was cancled and singles was OK but they had a DYP instead of OD, SD and RD. As luck would have it Dale beat me in the singles final and we drew each other in the DYP, winning that and almost all the money that weekend. It was shortly after this that TS came to Canada for the first time. In 1977 they held a 2000 dollar tournament in Vancouver, again on Blue Tops. Dan Kiaser and Rick Martin came up from Oregon. On Saturday night Richard and I, being the proper Canadians we are, gave the two legends a spanking and sent them to bed in losers bracket. Arguably the strongest team ever beat by two Canadians. They couldn’t stop my 5-bar and Richards defence was absolutely inspired. You< |
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I quit playing for a couple years so I don’t remember much. I lived in Montreal for a bit in the fall of 78 and couldn’t find a table anywhere there. At the same time Bob and Richard played in Chicago. They did poorly, and had a major peanut fight on the plane on the way home, the stuff of legends. Bob always did poorly in the States but Richard did well. He won novice singles at a Portland 50 Thousand. This was one month before Super Doubles in Minneapolis 78, and Richard reached TS Pro status that weekend in Portland. Lee too was a TS pro I think, taking second place open singles at the Vancouver 10 Thousand and so on. He lost to Dan Kiaser but this result is perhaps the best singles result for a Canadian in a tourney of that magnitude, factoring in for inflation and stuff. I don't know, there have been several other good results too. Lee still is a strong but some what inconsistent player living in Texas, a Tornado pro. In 1980 TS came to Edmonton with a 4000 Tourney and J.E Weatherhead, a distributer out of Vancouver, helped bring that about. There was a new talent on the Edmonton scene by the name of Dwight Gouchee and he beat me in the singles final. Lee and Dwight won doubles beating Steve La’Rock and some one else from Vancourver. This was the first time the Vancouver and Calgary players were starting to come and compete with those from Edmonton. Brian Leopky from Calgary took third in singles. We also in Edmonton had a Super Singles Tourney that year with the same result, Dwight won and I came second. I also won a sportsmanship award that weekend ( oh how I’ve changed), perhaps the only such award in the history of Canadian Foos, and I did everything I could to avoid winning that thing, including voting for myself and sending Bob out with twenty bucks to see if Mitch Jang or anyone else from Vancouver wanted to bet against me in the semi-finals against Steve Rix . No takers and I was lucky to get past Steve, the tide had already turned for the worst before I hacked one in to win it in four. Joey Ramjag from Edmonton won novice singles and was to go on to make quite the name for himself. In the early eighties there were a number of tourneys in Kamloops. I only went to one but they were a popular place for western Canadians to meet. I know one year there were two. One in the spring and one in the fall and there was to be a huge playoff in the fall between the singles winner in the spring and the singles winner in the fall to crown the real singles champ. Lee won in the spring and Mitch one in the fall. Immediately before the final playoff Lee went over to the Juke Box with about five bucks in quarters and plugged the same song over and over “… rambo jam rambo jam Whoa Black Betty rambo jam … “. Lee won the match, he beat Mitch and I think Lee would make a hell of a coach for our national team. I think Doug McKarthy from Edmonton at some point might have beat Mitch in a singles final out there too, I’m not sure. The year I went Rix won doubles for the second year in a row. I was living in Vancouver during the winter of 82-83 and playing at Dillingers. It was during that winter that the TS Brown top was replaced with the Pro Soccer table. Also in around 85(?) Canadians had some good results at the Dynamo Worlds. Mitch and Chezboro (?) I heard won the worlds roller-ball title two years in a row. Even more impressive perhaps was that Joey won the worlds under 17’s and the same year won the Friday night DYP with some no-name pro US goalie. There were some good players in that event, Fury, Lott, Bacon and Lafrado. Todd took third with a guy from Edmonton, Simon Edwards shooting some awesome euros from 2-bar. And Joey has such a mouth on him that what I heard was that in the DYP during his match against Johnny Horton it was Joey that got so offensive that Horton eventually just shut-up took the spanking and went to bed !!! (Possably not true but Joey was still getting himself banned from the local |
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Thanks Greg, I think you did an awesome job recounting you memories, I was hoping that you would put a tidbit in there about all the Vancouver tournaments you came to. I know that in the early 90's many players from Calgary and Edmonton came to our tournaments as well as you from Victoria. Anyway its always fun to hear about the past and the adventure's/mis-adventures along the way In Calgary in the early 90's Pro-tops were intro-duced by Brian Loepky and the local pool hall owner (can't remember his name) and they held many memorable tournaments with players from Calgary and Edmonton beating on each other with the interlopers from Vancouver kicking some butt as well |
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Yes, you're welcome, and that was quite a pleasure remembering all that. And you're right, I will write more, 1995 to 2007, next week when I have more time, Greg |
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Yeah thanks Greg, interesting to read how far back it goes. Ang, Brian and Ljubas have talked some times about the old days but I don't think that far back. |
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In an earlider post I said that I thought Steve Rix was second in the Trail tournament for the trip to Chicago. hat is incorrect....I was talking to Mitch a few days ago and it turns out that it was Mitch and his partner (Pete V.?) I resisted telling the rest of the story last time because I wanted some confirmation. Mitch recalls "something like" this to have happened so I wondered if anyone else can add some details. My recollection is that you had to qualify to enter the plyoff for the trip. I think =it was possible to qualify in a number of ways, including being either 1st or 2nd in the Open Doubles event played the same weekend as the playoff. Open doubles came down to Mitch and partner against Mcacow (sp?) and BIG partner (it wasn't McWeeny; Mitch remembers who it was. Mitch is winning when some sort of argument breaks out resulting in the american team storming out and forfeiting by way of protest....heaqd game....of course the Open doubles crown meant nothing to the americans who were there to win the trip, which they did by defeating Mitch in the finals of the playoff the next day. |
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Speaking of Bob Farris, I spoke with him recently as he had gotten a table through me years ago and was looking to sell it. I think that he is retired now from the railroad, he told me he vacations fairly regular in Asia to scuba dive and played a tournament in Malaysia. I think he won or came second :) Anyway he is a nice guy that always is willing to talk about foos or other topics. |
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