Home : Game Players :Great Games
Very few games are "great." A game is great only if it can be played happily by a sane person of at least average intelligence for several hours a day for fifty years. Air hockey was believed for many years to have been invented by a Brunswick Billiards employee named Bob Lemieux in 1972, Air Hockey was actually invented by a trio of Brunswick engineers - Phil Crossman, Bob Kendrick, and Brad Baldwin - who were attempting to create a game utilizing a frictionless surface, circa 1969. The project never got off the ground and was left in mothballs for several years, but Bob Lemeiux later resurrected the project and refined the design to a certain degree. Some accounts of the story claim that Lemieux played the game on the table using a round disk and square mallets. Doorbells were hooked up at each end with a photo sensor to signal a "goal". It was then decided that the "game" may appeal to a larger market and Air Hockey was born. How much of this is truth and how much of this is the result of gaps in the story being filled in over time through multiple storytellers may never be truly known, given that Lemieux died in the early 1990s. What is certain is that the original patent references Phil Crossman, who, along with the other engineers, pioneered the frictionless table surface - and, almost by chance, created an instant classic
For those who did not grow up in a rink or an arcade, bubble hockey is a table game in which competitors go head-to-head, or in teams, with each side controlling five players using rods that move the players forward and back in a slot and turn them in circles (a sixth handle moves the goalie back and forth in front of the net). Though it's technically called Super Chexx Hockey, everyone calls it bubble hockey because of the giant plastic dome that encloses the rink to keep the puck from flying out. The game moves fast, but speed is not as important as the technique of setting up plays. Where an amateur or even an intermediate player will focus on simply firing the puck at the net, a scorer works the puck to the center, and then, thanks to the design of the game, has an unimpeded breakaway every time he gets control of the puck. There is a pass that exploits a flaw in the game's design - evident in a particular formation in which the gap between sticks is just large enough to push a puck through gently to the center. It's indefensible, both technically and, according to the top players, morally; any rookie who shows up at a tournament and uses the pass is seriously looked down upon. Although patents for similar games may exist from as far back as the 1890s, the game of Table Football (Foosball) as we know it today was first invented and patented in 1923 by an Englishman by the name of Harold S. Thornton of North London (1895-1951). The concept was conceived after Harold had been to a Spurs football match (he was an avid supporter). He wanted to provide a game that replicated football that could be played at home. The inspiration came from a box of matches; by laying the matches across the box he had formed the basis of his game. His uncle (United States resident Louis P. Thornton, who lived in Portland Oregon) visited Harold and took the inspiration back to the States where it was patented in 1927. The patent eventually expired. Tabel football tables can vary in size, but a typical table is about 4 ft long and 2 ft wide. The table usually contains 8 rows of foos men, which are plastic, metal, wooden, or sometimes carbon-fibre figures mounted on horizontal metal bars. Table football can be played with four people in "doubles" style, in which there are teams of two people on either side. In this scenario, one player can control the two defensive rows and the other team member uses the midfield and attack rows. Watch your opponent as closely as you do the ball. “Once you know his habits, you can bait and switch—show him a hole, then take it away.” This dictates where he shoots, allowing you to anticipate and block. As with a chain saw, grip the handles loosely so your men deaden shots rather than deflect them, and tilt your goalie’s feet forward a bit to cut down angles. The five-bar (the one with five guys on it, doofus) is where matches are won and lost. On defense, don’t go nuts trying to block passes along the wall and between your men at the same time. Be on the wall or be in the lane; just pick. Switch it up occasionally to keep the other guy guessing. On offense, master the brush pass: Tilt your man’s feet back to trap the ball, then squeeze it diagonally through openings in the defense. The rollover or snake shot, is also the easiest to learn. Pin the ball with your center man’s feet pointed forward. With your right wrist against the handle, slide the rod to line up your shot, then roll your arm upward quickly (keep hold of the handle so it doesn’t spin more than 360 degrees, which is illegal). Your man will whip around and blast the ball past your drop-jawed opponent. Too tricky? Buy him a big pitcher. When he ralphs on the table, you win by default! When playing foosball at bars or anywhere where they charge you to play it, use this simple trick and save your quarters for something more useful, like dropping a night’s worth of Journey songs on the jukebox. When no one is watching, slip two plastic sugar caddies side-by-side inside the goals, sitting snugly at the bottom. When a goal is scored, the ball will fall into the sugar caddies, and not into the slot below, facilitating unlimited foosball bliss.
There is a tradition that the camp followers of the Grecian armies, who could not afford the discus, took discarded horseshoes, set up a stake and began throwing horseshoes at it. Horseshoe historians have not been able to discover when the game of quoits or horseshoes was changed so that it was pitched at two stakes, but it is pretty well established that horseshoe pitching had its origin in the game of quoits and that quoits is a modification of the old Grecian game of discus throwing. Following the Revolutionary War, it was said by England's Duke of Wellington that "the War was won by pitchers of horse hardware." In 1869, England set up rules to govern the game. The game seemed to have been a favorite among soldiers in most wars. Returning home, these soldiers interested their home folks more than ever in the game and horseshoe pitching courts were laid out in hundreds of cities, villages, and farming communities. Rules differences arose regionally, but the rules most generally accepted are:
Wherever horseshoe pitchers gather to play, you can see many different styles used in delivering. Some of these styles are smooth and correct. But many others are not. Merely picking up a pitching shoe and throwing it does not mean that a person can control it. On many occasions, you can hear a great deal about the importance of the delivery. But, all too often, the fundamentals that go to make up the delivery do not receive enough attention. Even though a horseshoe may represent a symbol of luck to some people, there is little or no luck involved in pitching ringers. Nor is there any shortcut that will quickly transform a novice into an expert player. Many hours of patient and correct practice are necessary to develop a good pitcher. Your limp wrist may finally come in handy.
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| Recommended Sites | Oneliners, Stories, etc. |
| Questions? Anything Not Work? Not Look Right? My Policy Is To Blame The Computer. |
| About Just For The Fun Of It | Link To Us | Site Navigation | Parting Shots |