Lake Superior Ice Festival Kubb Tournament 2023 Recap

SUPERIOR, Wisc. — The Lake Superior Ice Festival Kubb Tournament took place on Saturday, Jan. 28. The sub-zero temperatures didn’t deter 18 teams from piling on the layers and hitting the pitches for a full day of kubb. Luckily Lake Superior Kubb had their trademark yurt, outfitted with a heater, warm beverages, and snacks to take the edge off between matches.

The morning kicked off with single-game matches using the Klassic system. After seven rounds, teams were seeded into three brackets (championship, silver, bronze). At that point, matches across all brackets became best-of-three affairs.

In the championship bracket, there were a few early upsets. Top-seed Chaska Kubb and third-seed Ice Branches with Nerds were both knocked out in the first round. Every match in the first round required game threes to decide a winner.

The semi-finals were a little more decisive, with both Tiger Snipers (Matt Green, Bryce Pecore) and Glori Holtz (Cody Glorioso, Adam Holtz) getting it done in two games.

This made for a match-up that featured three 2022 All-Americans! The battle didn’t disappoint, with great play on both sides, but Tiger Snipers had a little edge in game one and took the win. In game two, Glori Holtz was able to battle back and force a third game. By now the sun was low in the sky and everyone’s hand warmers were on their last leg. Tiger Snipers got out to an early lead, clearing their baseline while Glori Holtz still had three 8 meters standing. That proved to be key, allowing Green and Pecore to take care of business and knock down that final king for all the championship glory!

A new edition to the tournament this year was the Elusive King Award, given to the player with the most king misses. There was no shortage of misses during the day, but stunningly each player who missed, still won those games. It wasn’t until the final match still going (well past sunset, I might add) that a team missed the king and lost the game. According to award rules, a single king miss that results in a game loss surpasses any number of missed kings with wins. So at the last minute, Craig Sieracki snagged the first Elusive King Award.

Final Results

Championship

1. Tiger Snipers (Matt Green, Bryce Pecore)
2. Glori Holtz (Cody Glorioso, Adam Holtz)
3. Dixie Kubbs (Josh Carpenter, Ben Lancette, Brian Ramsey)

Silver

1. Science for the Win(ter) (Steve Dolan, Christopher Jones, Demian Moore)
2. The Darkness-Fenrir
3. Life’s A Pitch

Bronze

1. Walking Tree Posse
2. Do do do looking for a short porch

The Elusive King Award

• Craig Sieracki