CHISAGO CITY, Minn. — After a long winter that has seen our kubb pitches covered in 70 plus inches of snow it seems only fitting that March exits as a lion, and not a lamb this year. Although, delaying the thaw of our favorite, and most traditional surface on which to play and destroy, lawns, it does not stop us from looking forward to the upcoming season of Kubb. In that vein, we travel 42 miles north of the Twin Cities to Chisago City, Minnesota, specifically “Peterson Park,” home of Mark Peterson. He is the founder of the GrAsskicker Kubb Club. Peterson agreed to answers some questions about his club and the team that shares its name, over a cup o’ joe while watching Mother Nature play her April Fool’s Day joke on us by dumping another 6 to 10
inches of snow on pitches throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Kubb On: Good morning, Mark. For those who are just getting into the game of kubb can you introduce us to yourself, and how you started to play kubb, and how the club “GrAsskickers” was started?
Mark Peterson: Good morning, I’ll do my best. My name is Mark Peterson, I was born and raised in Chisago City, Minnesota which is one of several small towns that encompass the Chisago Lakes area, northeast of the Twin Cities. It’s an idyllic area of the Midwest, surrounded by lush woods, beautiful lakes and borders Wisconsin on the St. Croix River. My Great-great grandparents came here from Sweden in the 1850s. So, my roots are deep here.
As our area is commonly referred to as “America’s Little Sweden” I grew up around Scandinavian heritage festivals. It was at one of these—Karl Oskar Day’s—in the early 2000s that I was exposed to kubb for the first time. A Swedish merchant had travelled here to participate in the weekends festivities and demonstrate kubb while selling sets. It was pure happenstance, that I stumbled through the park and saw this intriguing game for the first time. I jumped into the demonstration, and when I toppled my first kubb I was hooked! There was something special about the sound of the baton cracking against the block that instantly grabbed me. I left that day with my first kubb set.
The version of the game that I learned and played for a decade bore little resemblance to the current way we play in tournaments. In this version of the game, while inkasting you could stack field kubbs to improve you chances of eliminating multiple targets with a single baton, and once a field kubb had been struck down it is eliminated from play. You rarely saw more than three field kubbs in play. Needless to say, this ruleset made the game much easier for a newbie to pick up, but it’s much less challenging than tournament play.
In 2013, my oldest son graduated from high school and at his open house we had kubb set up on the lawn to play. My friend, and current teammate, Eric Brown, was in attendance and saw some kids playing and he told me that kubb was a big thing in the Chippewa Valley area of Wisconsin, and suggested we play in tournament. The following Spring we did just that. Our first tournament was the SpringFest sponsored by Leinenkugel’s at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair grounds. What a rude awakening that was. I’d never played by official tournament rules and we, and our wives, were quickly eliminated. That being said, it was the first time I’d competed in an event where fellow competitors were this generous with rule explanations, and tips on how to improve. Everyone was so gracious. I specifically remember John Oman explaining the strategy of and demonstrating how to “drill” a kubb when inkasting. After another match, in which we got destroyed by Tim Motzo, Steve Dolan, and Brad Larson, they even offered us free Summit beers! I said to Eric “This is the best game ever! Your opponent’s buy you drinks after thrashing you!” I was hooked.
The following year, my middle son, graduated from high school and again we set up kubb in the yard to play. As I looked at the guests who’d come to celebrate, I realized that we’d met most of these folk as the kids were growing up at sports events, choir, band, theater etc… and that with the kids leaving the nest we needed to create a reason to continue to see each other regularly. I didn’t want to lose these friendships. That’s when the idea of the kubb club struck me. I started to tell folks that I wanted to host an informal “get together” on Wednesday nights throughout the summer months that centered around this silly game but really highlighted the deepening of relationships. It was really organic.
So this started in the summer of 2015. If I’ve done my math correctly this will be your eighth year?
That sounds right, yes.
Where and when do you play?
In my yard, aka “Peterson Park.” I’ll normally have four or five pitches set up. We get together to throw sticks at blocks on Wednesday nights. We normally start in May, around Memorial day, and wrap up in September shortly after Labor Day.
What time to you start and finish?
I always tell folks they’re welcome anytime after 6 p.m. That being said we don’t normally get our first wave of players until 6:30. The peak for arrivals is probably around 7 p.m.
You mean you don’t have a formal start time?
That’s correct. We keep everything as informal as possible. People are free to come and go as they please. We have a couple who come regularly, they arrive at 6:30 and leave at 7:30 for a date night dinner. We have others who come, play and hang out right up until our stop time at 10 p.m. We even have a few who don’t play at all and just come to enjoy a beautiful summers evening with friends and a glass of wine.
How many people to you get on a typical Wednesday evening?
That’s hard to say. If I had to guess, I’d say we average is 15 to 20 people a week. But I always tell people who haven’t been here, but express interest in coming, I never know how many will come. It could literally run between four and 40.
If I were to show up on a given Wednesday what could I expect?
You can expect to have fun, meeting, and playing with new people who are just out to spend time with one another in a no frills, low competition environment. This is not a tournament experience. We don’t keep track of winners and losers. We just play. We form teams by gathering in a circle and counting off, “1, 2, 3,4,” and going to the assigned pitch for that number. You’re rarely teamed up with the same person twice in a night. We probably play three or four games and the rest of the evening is spent chitchatting about who knows what. It is completely low stress. I like to say “Wednesday night kubb should not promote stress. It should be a cure for it.”
Do you have any rules that we need to follow?
Yes. There are two very important rules:
- Bring your own beverage.
- Be prepared to smile, laugh, and have fun. No party poopers allowed.
How did you come up with the GrAsskicker logo for the club and team?
I’m a huge fan of PGA golf. One of my favorite tournaments of the year is The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. In 2016 or 2017 I was watching it on TV and I noticed their logo the famous “Gold Man” swinging his golf club, and inspiration struck! I called the folks at Ambient Inks in Eau Claire, the same group that has helped Eric Anderson design his U.S Nationals t-shirts and ran some ideas of how we could blend/change that into a kubb design. They did an absolutely great job with it. I was so happy with the finished product I produced several dozen to give away to both teammates, and club participants. That started what I call my annual freebies. Each year, I give away shirts, ball caps, kubb cup holders etc… to the folks who come and play a minimum of three times during the summer. It’s fun to see folks wearing them in the community. It always spurs conversation about the game.
That leads me to ask, in the seven full years you’ve been hosting your Wednesday night kubb sessions how many people have you introduced the game to?
That’s hard to say, but between these Wednesday night sessions, and “Learn how to Play” events I’d estimate I’ve introduced the game to several hundred people.
I hear that you have a unique way of ending a kubb season.
Yes. In September when we start losing light by 7:30 or so, we finish the year off with a big potluck. It’s a blast! One year I made and served paella for 50, another year it was “cream can supper” etc… I was thinking I may do jambalaya or gumbo this year ,but we’ll see about that.
What are your team goals for 2023, and beyond?
I’ve been so fortunate to be teammates with two of the best partners a player could ask for. Eric Brown, who in my opinion is one of the most underrated blasters in the sport, and Gordon Kauffman, two time all-American, and inarguably one of the Top 5 all around players in the game. I’m lucky in that being surrounded by these two great players even a run of the mill baton chucker like myself can find some success. I’m happy to note that over the last few years we’ve been fortunate to have a few tournament wins (Two U.S Open Championships, two Dallas 6v6 Titles, 2021 Eau Claire Spring League Title and the 2022 PawPrint Championship) and several other podium finishes. We’re hoping to build on that. It goes without saying that every kubb player dreams of winning Natty’s and we’ll take another stab at disrupting the duopoly of Kubbsicles and Gregg, Grant (and Company) this July. Who knows maybe it’ll be our year?! Looking a little further down the road, the GrAsskickers will be teaming up with Chippawaffles- Adam Holtz and Jeff Rodgers, and KubbFellas-Chad Stute to travel to Sweden and participate in the World Championship in 2024. It would be fun to be the first 100% American Team to win that one. Between those events and smaller regional tournaments and leagues we’ll stay busy.
Thanks for spending time with us this wet dreary morning. Here’s hoping for sunny days, and green grass soon!
You’re very welcome! And thanks for everything you do to support the Kubb Community with
your tournament news, recaps, and other features on Kubbon.com. It really is an invaluable resource
for those of us who play and for those who are just being introduced to this great game and sport.
