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The Comeback Trail,
Part 4:
A Table Hockey Fest
dans les Cantons de l’est
On November 10, I motored across 4 states
(NY, CT, MA VT) en route to Martin Labelle’s tournament
in Sherbrooke, Quebec. In mellow mood, I cruised under the
radar. Driving through Vermont is always a peaceful experience,
and a similar serenity pervades Quebec’s scenic Eastern
Townships (les Cantons de l’est), which share a tree-lined
border with Vermont.
Fewer than 3 months had elapsed since the
end of August, when I first visited Martin, picked up my Labelle
5380, and hit the comeback trail. So returning to Sherbrooke
for his tournament, the last Canadian event of the 2006 season,
was a kind of bookmark in this chapter of the trail. A lot
has happened since August, and more things happened on November
11 and 12. Here’s my synopsis of those events: First,
Saturday’s tournament; second, my private session and
table hockey lesson with Martin on Sunday.
Saturday November 11: The Sherbrooke Tournament
Thirty players turned up for this event, including 9 of Canada’s
top 10. This field was even tougher than the field at Carlo’s
tournament in Montreal, because more strong players and fewer
weaker ones participated in Sherbrooke. To make a long story
short, Carlo Bossio defeated his brother Gino in the final,
reinforcing his ranking as the #1 Labelle-Coleco player in
Canada, and the world. Martin Labelle played a great tournament,
and had Gino Bossio on the verge of elimination in their best
of five semi-final series. Leading 2-0 in games, and leading
in game three, Martin somehow ran out of gas, while Gino showed
his determination and skill as a comeback artist. He took
out Martin in 5, to set up the all-Bossio final.
The Bossios are the greatest “brother act” that
I have ever seen in table hockey – and that includes
some fine ones, such as my late brother Sid and I, Steve and
Mitch Ettinger, Sam and Alex Anoussis.
The other semi-final pitted Dave Kraeling against Carlo, but
Carlo was in no danger of losing to anyone on that day. Even
so, Dave played outstanding table-hockey, finishing third
overall, after defeating his nemesis Martin Labelle in the
bronze-medal match. Dave is a particular inspiration to me,
playing that quality of table hockey at 47 years of age.
Dave Kraeling, Carlo
Bossio, Gino Bossio
The overall caliber of play
was very high, and my performance was essentially a weaker
carbon-copy of Montreal. I was relegated to division B after
round 1, fought my way back into division A during round 2,
then lost to Burt Brassard (again!) in the playoffs. Along
the way, I encountered some other top-ten players for the
first time, dropping round-robin games to Greg Peden (a consistently
brilliant player) and Angelo Fellano (who had placed second
in Montreal). On a brighter note, I managed to win round-robin
games against Alain Gamache (who had defeated me in Montreal),
Dany Leclerc (who had defeated me in practice), Patrick Cote
(who had finished third overall in Montreal), and Mark Sokolski
(a top-10 player and Irwin champion). As in Montreal, I scored
enough goals to be competitive, but my defense was simply
too porous for me to advance. I finished 14th overall in Sherbrooke,
which is comparable to my 12th-place finish in Montreal. My
average is lucky 13. If you don’t believe it was a tough
tournament, just ask Mark Sokolski, who made his bones on
the Irwin board. He got mauled in the first round, and tumbled
into the C division.
complete
tournament results here
But in the aftermath of the
Sherbrooke tournament, I finally understood what I must do
– both offensively and defensively – in order
to have any chance of finishing in the top 10, and of giving
the very best players anything to worry about in a series.
My eyes had been opened the previous weekend, in practice
with the Bossio brothers (see the previous episode, The Lions’
Den), but I did not really grasp what I had seen there until
the day after the Sherbrooke tournament, when I had a Sunday-morning
session with Martin Labelle.
Sunday November 12: Chez Labelle
Martin is incredibly devoted to table hockey. Not only did
he organize a fine event in Sherbrooke (as does Carlo in Montreal
and Burt in Quebec City), not only did he build the definitive
board that saved Coleco #5380 from extinction, and not only
does he rank among the very best players – beyond this,
Martin has thought deeply and clearly about many other aspects
of the sport, including broadcasting and coaching. He is a
deep reservoir of table hockey culture. I became a beneficiary
of his coaching skills that Sunday, and I really needed them.
I arrived chez Labelle about 11:00 a.m., and found Martin
already warming up on the board with his 5-year-old son, Kevin,
who may be the next Labelle table hockey prodigy. Martin and
I warmed up, then played a good many 5-minute games. He defeated
me in every single game, scoring almost at will in some of
them. (This reminded me of my first practice session with
Kenny Dubois, in which I either lost or tied games during
several hours of play, before being able to win any. ) I managed
to lose several one-goal games against Martin, but that was
as close as I could come. Playing Labelle on Labelle chez
Labelle, my 1970s-style offense and defense stood no chance
of competing effectively. On top of this, Martin has a style
that I find very difficult to beat. I’m not alone. Just
ask Dave Kraeling, a top-10 player who had bested Martin in
a series for the first time on the previous day.
Kevin
Labelle
Then Martin took off his playing
hat and put on his coaching cap, and we got down to the mechanics
of table hockey in the 21st century. Building on what I had
learned from the Bossios, Martin showed me explicitly what
he and other top players are doing – offensively and
defensively – on the Labelle #5380. Offensively, there
has been a big development in recent years, namely the emergence
of a new dimension of offense. I call it the “inside
dimension,” for reasons that will shortly become clear.
Defenses have had to adjust to this new development, and that
adjustment has been major as well. It’s not merely a
positional shift; rather, it’s a strategic shift from
playing the puck to playing the percentages.
The Outside Dimension
In the 1970s and 80s, top-rated Coleco players used strictly
the “outside” dimension of offense. That is, our
wing-men set up the puck on the outside of the slot, somewhere
between the slot and the boards. From this position we executed
all our picks, going either high or low to the center, and
occasionally shooting directly to the short side or the long
side, if openings presented themselves. We executed all the
“trick” shots too, such as the quick backhand
turnaround to the far side (with or without the deflection
off the center), or the quick turnaround slapshot (with the
deflection off the center). Mike Clarke was a 1970s master
of these quick plays. But the basic offensive setup, from
either wing, whether going high or low, was strictly in this
“outside dimension.”
The best defensive response to this outside offensive dimension
was to play the puck, leaving an opening either high or low
(depending on a given player’s strength and weakness),
and then moving either to intercept the puck with the defenseman,
or else to kick it out with the goalie. That was the state-of-the-art
in the 1970s and early 1980s, and that’s how I won consistently
in league and tournament play: By setting up in the outside
dimension on offense, and playing the puck on defense.
The Inside Dimension
Times have changed. Setups and strategies that won in 20th
century now lose in the 21st. During this autumn comeback,
I have been asked repeatedly, by many players, “How
has the game changed?” I can now begin to answer. There
is a new dimension of offense – the inside dimension.
And there’s a new defensive strategy to counter it:
playing the percentages instead of playing the puck.
Carlo and Gino Bossio, Martin Labelle, and other top players
are fully capable of executing the outside dimension as well.
When Carlo first saw my low pick off the left wing, he said
“That’s my play exactly.” And so it is.
For his part, Martin has all the outside shots, including
one of the fastest “quick turnaround” moves I
have ever seen – and off both wings. But these guys
do not depend on the outside dimension alone, nor even primarily.
They are all adept at the inside dimension too.
By setting up the puck on the inside of the wingman’s
slot, between the blue line and the top of the face-off circle,
a new and deadly pick can be executed. The first threat is
a shot directly into the top corner from either side (particularly
on the right) and directly into the far corner from the left
. Even the smallest gap between goalie and net can be exploited
from this position, which utilizes the base of the winger
instead of the stick. If the defensive player covers that
gap, he then leaves a dangerous high-low pick from this inside
dimension as well.
And because the distance to the net is that much shorter from
the inside setup compared with the outside setup, the time
it takes the puck to reach the net is that much shorter too.
This spells devastating consequences to any defense (like
mine!) that tries to play the puck. In fact it’s impossible
to play the puck defensively when facing the inside dimension
of offense. As Carlo and Martin both emphasized and demonstrated
to me, you have to play the percentages instead. You always
have to leave something open , and it’s better to leave
a little bit of everything rather than too much of something.
The tolerances of this inside dimension are critical. Defensively,
if your goalie or defenseman are as little as 1/16 of an inch
out of position, the top players will probably score on you.
If you are 1/8 of an inch out of position, they will certainly
score on you.
In a nutshell, this is why I have scored too few and allowed
too many goals during this initial phase of my comeback. Offensively,
I have been playing in only one dimension instead of two.
That’s like a one-cylinder engine trying to race against
two-cylinder engines. Defensively, a number of top players
had commented that my goalie is moving way too much, and way
too soon. Of course he was: He was trying to play the puck
against the inside dimension. That was Mission Impossible:
The harder I tried to play the puck, the more goals against
I allowed!
So my next challenge is now plain: I must develop the inside
dimension of offense, and change my defensive strategy from
playing the puck to playing the percentages. If I can do both
these things successfully, I will stand a good chance of cracking
the top 10. After all, I’m finishing consistently just
behind this group, armed with a one-dimensional offense and
a mission impossible defense. Can this old dog learn new table-hockey
tricks? If so, I'll spend more time playing and less time
refereeing. Only time will tell.
Burt Brassard, Lou
Marinoff, Angelo Fellano
The Trail Leads West
What an incredible three months it’s been. I recall
the sunny afternoon in August when I first met Martin, picked
up my board, and hit the comeback trail. The board fits perfectly
in the trunk of my Jag, and that ménage-a-trois –
man, car, Labelle #5380 – has motored more than 4,000
miles in fewer than three months. The trail has led to Breezy
Point three times, and to Montreal, Sherbrooke and Hartford
twice each – to tournaments, leagues and practice sessions.
Lou
and Martin, August 2006
Thanks to many spirited players
who have become my friends – Martin Labelle, John Power,
Kenny Dubois, Carlo Bossio and Gino Bossio among others –
I have been invited and welcomed back into the sport. In that
process, I have encountered the finest set of players ever
to touch a Coleco-style board.
What really impresses me about them, beyond their skill level
and intensity, is their quest for worthy competition. Not
content with dominating their leagues or their peer-groups,
players like Carlo, Martin and Kenny have taken time and trouble
to play me and to coach me, because they genuinely want me
to give them a hard time. Win or lose, they want to test themselves
against the best table hockey players they can find. They
are like jousting knights, always ready to defend their honor,
and always willing to meet their match.
Following John Power’s September tournament at Breezy
point, where I lost in the final to Kenny Dubois, I knew that
the game had changed (but not how it had changed). So back
in September, in the first episode of this saga, I drew two
conclusions:
First, the current generation
of table hockey players is more gifted and more advanced
than the previous one. This is definitely a good thing.
It demonstrates that the game has the capacity to evolve,
and therefore also has the potential to survive and thrive.
Second, one of my next personal challenges in the quest
is to find out whether I am capable of raising my proficiency
to the 900 level. If so, I may be able to win a game or
two against Kenny. If not, I will still continue doing everything
in my power to promote table hockey, secure in the knowledge
that its future lies in more capable hands than mine. Either
way, it’s a win-win scenario for the game and sport
that that we all care about so deeply.
When I wrote those words, I had not yet met
or played Carlo and Gino Bossio, Angelo Fellano, Dave Kraeling,
or Greg Peden. Nor had I yet played a series against Burt
Brassard, nor any five-minute games against Martin Labelle.
Having done these things since then, I know that my first
conclusion was more than sound. These guys (among others)
are outstanding players, definitely the best that I have ever
seen or faced.
The second conclusion is borne out too. My current NYCTHA
league record is 30-2-2, a winning percentage of .912. And
the last time Kenny and I sparred in Hartford, it was pretty
much a standoff. After about five hours of five-minute games,
we were more-or-less even. Our last three games were 1-1-1,
with the tie coming (fittingly) in the final game of the day.
So that early stage of the quest is accomplished.
My next personal challenge is to develop the inside dimension
on offense, and play the percentages instead of the puck on
defense. If I can do these things proficiently, I can crack
the top-10. My learning curve leads west, to Canada’s
other big table hockey province: Ontario. The greater Toronto
area houses a pair of top-10 players: Dave Kraeling and Greg
Peden. I have 0-1 records against them both. And Dave has
just beaten two players who have beaten me, namely Burt and
Martin. Clearly, I must play some table hockey in Toronto,
whose contingent holds the next keys to my comeback.
And yes, I am still working (partly behind the scenes) to
promote the sport. That trail, however, leads east, and may
be the subject of a future episode. Meanwhile, it’s
westward ho!
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