Captain Ken’s Loppet Kubb Tournament 2022 Recap

MINNEAPOLIS — A windy, bitter cold day is not enough to stop dedicated Midwestern kubb players, as proven once again at Captain Ken’s Loppet Kubb Tournament. The annual snow kubb tournament has had a variety of conditions over the years, but the wind made this one of the chillier ones. Luckily there was a nice layer of snow that allowed for drilling, but didn’t bury kubbs.

Two divisions (championship and recreational) were competing that day to crown a champion. The championship division saw 16 teams of mostly familiar faces battle it out in four groups of morning round robin play. After a few throw-offs to break ties, all teams were seeded into a bracket.

Just like the round robin matches, the bracket used a best-of-three game format. Unlike the morning rounds, however, there was no longer a time limit. This made for a few long matches, but by early evening the final four were set.

Grape 8s (Steve Dolan, Adam Holtz, Demian Moore) and Lumber Tumblers (Casey Anderson, Christopher Jones, Brian Winistorfer) were morning group-mates, with the Lumber Tumblers taking that early match. This time though, Grape 8s were really on fire and took the semi-final match 2-0.

On the other side of the bracket, Kubbfellas (Jim Powell, Chad Stute, Andrew Thibodeau) and TC Choppers (Josh Carpenter, Ben Lancette, Brian Ramsey) held a very long back-and-forth match that needed all three games to crown a winner. The Kubbfellas would be moving on to the finals.

In the finals, both teams were playing great kubb. It wasn’t long before each side was down to a single back row kubb, but it was the Kubbfellas who ultimately had the batons to finish game one.

In game two, both teams started a bit cold. On the first six baton turn, however, Grape 8s was able to add four kubbs. This proved to be too much for the Kubbfellas to come back from, and Grape 8s took game two on the next turn. It was now on to the deciding third game.

Kubbfellas opened game three with a 50 percent open. Grape 8s answered with a field to baseline double, and another 8 meter for good measure. Both teams in this game were showing excellent play—in both blasting and the back row—but Grape 8s was so efficient, the Kubbfellas didn’t get another turn. Grape 8s took out their field kubbs in two batons, went three-for-three on the back row and slayed the king with the last baton to win the match and the tournament.

In the third place match, TC Choppers took game one, but the Lumber Tumblers rallied for a comeback, ultimately winning the match in game three.