Crokinole!

A few weeks ago, we attended a Northfield Swedish Club fika event, and I played a little game called Couronne. It is similar to billiards, but instead of using a large pool table and pool balls, it uses a little wooden board that sits on a table, and wooden disks. You use a cue to hit your shooter at your color disks to try to get them in the holes at the four corners.

Although I played quite poorly, I thought it was pretty fun and that it might be great to have a stowable and portable game of skill that we could add to our home’s repertoire. Sam and I have the intention to play games once a week, but often end up being too tired to actually want to play a game that requires a lot of setup, thinking, and strategy so we usually just end up watching TV instead. I thought it would be perfect to have a fun game that didn’t require a lot of thinking that we could play, and that this would help us connect with each other more than putting on a TV show would.

The Brio board that was at the event seems to be discontinued, but there are some other companies that still sell Couronne sets. But in my digging, I discovered that there are a number of games that are all pretty similar:

• Carrom is from India and you flick the disks instead of hitting them with a cue. This seems to be the origin of all of the disk-flicking (pichenotte) games.
• Novuss (or Korona/Koroona) is from Estonia and Latvia. As a cue-based game, it looks similar to Couronne, except it is larger and the number and arrangement of the disks is different.
• Crokinole is from Canada, and seems to have a passionate following. In Crokinole the players take turns flicking buttons toward the center of a circular board. It feels pretty similar to shuffleboard or curling.

I had initially decided to get a Novuss board, particularly due to its connection with Latvia. Unfortunately I couldn’t find anywhere to actually buy one. But after finding out that Crokinole has a really good rating on BoardGameGeek compared to other disk-flicking games (47th overall, and 5th for family games), I decided to order a Crokinole board instead.

My Tracey Board was delivered about a week ago and I’ve had a lot of fun playing with friends and family. The board itself seems to be built very well and I think it will provide us with many hours of good times.

If you want to learn more about Crokinole, check out this fun review: