First and foremost, I want to say thank you to Jason Larson and the rest of the Chaska crew for putting on a fun and very smoothly run tournament. There were some snafus and inconveniences that arose but they were handled with aplomb by Jason. I also want to thank the participants for their drive over, adding their personality and fun to each of the games, and eating all of the baked beans I made for lunch.
For a very thorough recap of the day as well as perspective from inside “the cage”, please read the article from John Oman. For perspective on playing in a 1v1 kubb tournament for the first time, and watching from outside “the cage,” please keep reading!
The morning started with five games that determined the seeding for the bracket play in the afternoon. The tournament was run so that each person played for a place in the standings and thus no one was eliminated. For me, this was unique. I also did not register just how much kubb I would be playing or how many times I would need to pick stuff up over the course of the day. I’m heavily considering getting an extension grabber.
One area of focus for me, in regards to the game, is drilling, and I am hoping to get decent sooner rather than later. So my game plan was to win the opening throw and hit as many 8 meters as I could before too many kubbs needed to be drilled into play. Needless to say, my game plan did not work and at the end of the morning, I came out with a 1-4 record and in one of the losses, my opponent did not hit a single 8 meter. That happened in the first match and I couldn’t help but laugh or else it would make for a long day. Shout out to Steve Dolan!
As the afternoon played out, and seeing the consistent inconsistencies in my game show up, I got to the point where I just wanted to be done playing. So when the match for 25th place with J.J. Weigel came up and he asked me, “Hey, this is pretty prestigious, want to make it a best-of-three?” I naturally said yes. An hour and a half later, I took 26th out of 28. Not too shabby. Well done J.J.!
Once the marathon for 25th place was over, I plopped down next to a crew of St. Paul Kubb Society people and watched an epic best-of-three between John and Mark Oman. One of the things that I noticed, besides their signature throw, is that they both got better at drilling when there are more kubbs in play. The other thing that was noticed by the crowd, was that they were putting on a masterclass of a match. I believe it was four rounds of throwing before someone missed an 8 meter in one of the games. It was very much akin to seeing someone pitch a perfect game in baseball and the people around me knew it.
After the semi-final matches were over, it was Erik Linge and John Oman for the final and Mark Oman and Adam Holtz for third place. While watching each of these matches, I couldn’t help but think that if I was 1/32 as good as these guys in 4 meters, 8 meters, and drilling then I might’ve snaked a win for 25th place! The matches were resolved in what felt like no time at all, but that was due to just how engrossed we were in the games. I think if they were a best-of-five, no one would’ve been upset because that meant more great kubb was able to be watched. Overall, it was a long but fantastic day of kubb and I look forward to going back next year.
