Crokinole!

My surprise for Jill this year was a custom, hand-painted Crokinole board. We played a few rounds at BGG.con with KC and Rita. Jill commented afterwards that something like that would be nice at home. That got me thinking after returning home. The boards made for Derk and Aldie were very cool and without any sort of imaginative, original idea 😉 for Jill’s board, I talked to Aldie and received permission to use the BGG logo on another board from the Hilinski brothers. In talking to Carl Hilinski about creating another “Geek” board, he warned me it might not be ready before Christmas. That was OK, I still wanted to commission the board. I checked on the board in the middle of December and Carl was putting the finishing touches on it. Carl was great to work with and I appreciated his willingness to ship the board directly to Florida so it would be there when we arrived.

Carl told me prior to shipping the board they were waiting on a shipment of discs so I looked around for another place to purchase some to use over the holiday until the discs from Carl could catch up with the board. Crokinole discs are not easy to find! Unless you live in Canada where this is more popular than in the States. Needless to say, the shipping made that idea a non-starter. Then I hit on the idea of using some backgammon discs from our set. They are made of some composite material rather than wood and a little smaller than a Crokinole disc. But they are very smooth on both sides and work well as a substitute.

The board is a big hit with the family. Jill, the boys and Jill’s parents all had a great time playing last week. I’d say we’ve played close to 50 matches (to 100 points, usually 3-5 rounds/match) on this board already. My friend Troy has had a board for several years and I always play a couple of games at our annual gaming weekend. This year, I may actually be competitive!

My warmest thanks to Carl and Stan Hilinski for making quality boards and Penny Hauffe for the wonderful rendering of the BGG logo.