By Josh Martin, Sports Editor

henever the word “croquet”
comes up in conversation—
which doesn’t seem to

happen very often—there is one vivid
image that comes to my mind: a warm
summer day with a gentle breeze in
the backyard and a couple of kids
playing this particular event while tall
glasses of iced tea wait for them on the
balcony table. Mmm. Doesn’t seem
half bad, does it? Maybe it’s because I
haven’t actually played croquet since I
was about 12 years old, but it seems as
though croquet doesn’t exactly live up
to the same calibre as football, soccer,
or hockey. To me, croquet may even be
in the same ball park as darts, billiards,
lawn bowling, bocce, beer pong, and
on a real stretch— golf. So, that brings
me to the question... is it a sport?
Basically, croquet is a lawn
game that involves hitting plastic or
wooden balls through hoops— which
are planted into the ground—with a
mallet until you get your specific ball
through all the hoops (before the other
competitors do so). It’s a simple and
fun way to spend an afternoon, and one
that anyone can partake in.
However, croquet isn’t all sunshine and
hugs. There is a whole other side to
the world of croquet—one that many
people thrive in, while others move
their heads from side-to-side and cross
their arms in frustration. The nasty
side of the game is that players will
often attempt to move their opponents’
balls—by making contact with their
own—to undesirable positions.
GASP, I know. But just think of how
frustrated you would get as a kid when
your friend would knock your ball all

the way to the other side of the yard
while laughing and sipping on his
chilled iced tea... not such a pleasant
afternoon, now is it?

All fairness aside, let’s get down
to the details of this emotional pastime.
There are several different variations
of croquet that are being played all
around the world which differ in the
scoring systems, order of shots, and
layout. But, overall, it comes down to
two main forms of croquet: association
croquet and golf croquet.

Association croquet is the name
of an advanced game of croquet which
is played at the international level. It
involves four balls divided into teams
of pairs, with both balls having to go
through every single hoop for one team
to win. The game’s main attraction is
the “croquet shot,” which means that
when you hit your opponents’ balls an
extra shot is rewarded. The six hoops
that each pair must make their journey
through are arranged so that there are
three at each side of the court or yard
along with a centre peg.

Now, golf croquet, on the other
hand, is a little simpler than association
croquet. There are no additional turns
rewarded for hitting other balls. Each
player takes a turn at hitting their
ball through the same hoop while the
sequence that plays out is blue, red,
black, and yellow—with blue and
black balls playing against red and
yellow. Whichever team wins the most
hoops wins the game. Golf croquet
seems to be the fastest growing and
most popular version of the game
played today.

So, is croquet a sport? Yes... you
better believe it.

 

No point to scoring

&

Sats.

Why youth soccer has lost its marbles

By Eric Wilkins, Staff Writer

outh soccer has always been an
Yy interesting scene—screaming
parents at their seven-year-
old’s game, stressed out teenage
referees, uneducated spectators. But
in the last few years, there has been a
growing presence that is more inane
than any of these: the movement to
restrict, or in some cases to do away
with completely, scoring.
Say what?
Before jumping all over this, it
has to be considered that maybe these
organizations have a very logical
reason for doing so. My favourite quote
is from the Calgary Minor Soccer
Association’s executive director,
Daryl Leinweber, “Scoreless games
will improve team-building, skill
development and be moré fun for
children,” though thankfully, the league
has put off implementing the rule—for
now. Leinweber clearly missed out
on the irony here, in that life is about
setting goals for oneself, all while the
organization is considering doing away
with them.
Another couple of fun tidbits are
these excerpts from the Gloucester

Dragons Recreational Soccer Club
handbook:

Scoring Limit

¢ Respect your opponent: do not
run up the score.

¢ — To prevent running up the
score, a five-goal differential
is the maximum allowed.

¢ If at the end of a game there
is more than a five-goal
difference in the score, the
team that scored over five
goals will have the results
recorded as a loss when the
game is recorded at the office.

Strategies coaches can use to avoid
this problem
° Rotating players into other
than normal positions

¢ Passing the ball a number of
times prior to a shot on goal
¢ Kicking with the weaker foot
¢ Reducing the number of
players on the field
¢ Kick at net only from outside
the penalty box

Due to the outstanding (negative)
response it provoked, the league

has since reverted back to a more
traditional ‘mercy’ rule, but just the
fact that this even happened is a bit of a
head-scratcher.

The most recent publicized
example is the Telford Junior League
in merry old England, where scoring
has not been done away with, but the
recording of results is limited to 1-0, or
0-0 scorelines, regardless of how many
were actually scored. The rationale
behind this is that when the youngsters
go home to see the posted results after
a huge loss, they will discover that
they only lost by one goal and will be
deeply comforted by this reassurance.
As a result of them not being majorly
emotionally depressed over getting
trashed, they will theoretically go on to
live a happier and more fulfilling life.
Or something like that.

Personally I’m glad that there is
an effort being made to eliminate all
competitiveness from youth sport. I
can only imagine how different my
life would be had the grief of losing
a soccer game been removed from
my harrowing childhood. I would be
living in a perfect world right now; I
would be blissfully unaware of any
sort of negativity. Blissfully unaware,
that is, until life decided to make an
appearance. Give me a break. .

Kids need to learn that losing,
rejection, and negative events are a part
of life, and having organized sports
coddle them like this is not going to
help. But even this is going too in
depth. Sports are about competing and
having fun; how many life-changing
lessons is one supposed to draw from
them anyways?