Victoria Day Long Weekend Croquet Tournament Draws Contestants from Florida, Scotland
Croquet is taking over the lawns at the Canadian Pacific and Victoria Lawn Bowling Clubs this weekend, as the two clubs join forces to host the Victoria Day Association Croquet Tournament. Activities will start on Friday afternoon with a practice session at CP for the contenders and a set of workshops for less-experienced players at Victoria.
The competition will be held in two “flights”: the A-Flight features nine players ranked internationally with “D-Grades” from 2002 to 1606; the B-Flight is for less experienced players with D-Grades between 1318 and 1169 — three of the B-Flighters will be assigned D-Grades for the first time as a result of their play in this event.
The top-ranked player entering the tournament is CP’s own Chris Percival-Smith (2002), who is now #2 in Canada and has represented Canada at the World Championships in New Zealand. The next-ranked player is Jane Morrison (1908), visiting from Scotland, where she is the highest-ranked woman player. Chris will be playing all of his games through Saturday and up until 5:00pm Sunday at the CP court. Chris’ last game on Sunday, starting at 2:45, will match him against Jane as they battle for good positions in the playoffs that follow.
Other top players competing are Steve Scalpone of Oregon (1860), Michael Albert of Florida (1851), CP’s Michael Dowling (1777), and Conor Broderick (1775), who moved from Ireland to Vancouver a couple of years ago.
Additional Victoria area players competing are Pierre Dunn (1641) and Lorne Oakes (1318), who both play at CP and VLBC; and CP’s Keir Cordner (1274) and Steffen Preusser (tbd). Rounding out the field of entries are Brian Wasylyk of Campbell River (1615); Gary Anderson (1606) and Jason Torla (tbd) of Seattle; and John D Adams (1169) and Mark Dix-Cooper (tbd) of Vancouver.
Come on down to the courts to watch the action. There is usually one player not engaged in a game during each round of play, and they’re usually ready to respond to questions. However, please try not to distract the players who are actually playing and are only off-court because it is their opponent’s turn!