Latest news with #EvanMitsui
CBC
3 days ago
- Sport
- CBC
In crokinole country
At the World Crokinole Championship in Ontario, a Canadian math prof is vying to take back the title from the current American champ. Justin Slater, right, shakes hands with Connor Reinman after being knocked out in the semifinal round of the World Crokinole Championship in Tavistock, Ont., on June 1, 2024. Reinman went on to win the tournament — his second in a row. On Saturday, Slater — who has five world titles — will try to reclaim his crown. Evan Mitsui/CBC By Evan Mitsui Jun. 6, 2025 Justin Slater may be one of the most dominant competitors you've never heard of. His game is crokinole and, on Saturday, the Canadian will attempt to reclaim his crown from American upstart Connor Reinman, who's chasing his own place in history. ADVERTISEMENT The World Crokinole Championship will run — as it has for a quarter century — on the first Saturday of June in Tavistock, Ont., about 50 kilometres from Kitchener, near the spiritual heartland of a game that's been played in this country longer than organized hockey. Crokinole is a game where finger dexterity is key. It lands somewhere at the nexus of air hockey, pool and curling and is played on a wooden board with a shallow hole in the centre. Players typically discover it at the family cottage as kids, then rediscover it as adults in the basement or shed. It pairs well with beer, but not at the highest levels of play. The game is in the midst of a renaissance and competition at the world's toughest tournament has never been stiffer. The defending champ 'It's the precision that drew me to it initially and then the strategy,' said Reinman, a day after clinching his second world championship in a row last June. A graduate student at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music, Reinman, 28, has a head for numbers and compares the action of crokinole to billiards. 'You can see the physics playing out' when you line up a shot, he said over FaceTime from his home in Bloomington, Ind., where he and his now fiancée, Michelle Astorsdotter, (who competes in the recreational division) had returned after the tournament. A numbers guy Slater, 32, is an assistant professor of math and statistics at the University of Guelph. Like Reinman, he's a numbers guy and, like Reinman, started playing serious crokinole as a teenager. 'When I didn't want to do my calculus homework or whatever, I would sit at the kitchen table and just shoot 20s,' Slater said, seated across from a crokinole board set on his kitchen table in Guelph, Ont. Scoring in crokinole is not dissimilar from darts or curling with points ascribed to concentric zones radiating out from the centre. A 20 is when a player sinks their piece in the centre hole. Right on the button. At the top echelon of competition, where Slater and Reinman play, competitors tend to sink 20s as if guided by magnets, seldom missing the mark. Slater is the winningest player in competitive crokinole with five world titles to his name — more if you include the doubles trophies he has won with his father. The Slater name dominates the leaderboard between 2015 and 2019. Only COVID could stop his run when competitions were cancelled from 2020 to 2022. Another win is a chance to prove he's still got it. 'I was clearly the best for a while, not anymore though,' he said. 'It's cool to be the best at something, even if it's just crokinole.' When tournaments resumed in 2023 Reinman emerged seemingly out of nowhere, first winning regional competitions then the world title back-to-back in 2023 and 2024. Now, faced with the possibility of a three-peat, Reinman is breathing rarefied air. Slater does not want that to happen. Their Canada-U.S. rivalry makes a win for either of them sweeter still. A game older than hockey Hockey may be Canada's game but crokinole's been around longer. There are similar games played around the world, including carrom, developed in India in the mid-1800s and played on a square board. Crokinole historian Wayne Kelly, of Stratford, Ont., died in 2016 but not before addressing the game's origins in The Crokinole Book, which describes a game of the same name being played in Ontario farmhouses as far back as 1867. (The first game of organized hockey was played in 1875 in Montreal.) And then there's Eckhardt Wettlaufer's 1876 board, on display at a museum in Kitchener, Ont., which every player knows and references as the oldest known crokinole artifact and proof of the game's Canadian provenance. 'It's Canada's game' Origins aside, the game's popularity is rising and much of that interest is coming from south of the border at clubs like the Extra Pint, in Voorheesville, N.Y. Club founder Jason Molloy's friendly games soon outgrew the garage and now, thanks largely to word-of-mouth and YouTube, Extra Pint has chapters across the East Coast and Texas. The U.S. Open, now in its fifth year, is hosted in Voorheesville, a small town like Tavistock. 'We take pride in Connor [Reinman],' Molloy said over the phone from his office in Albany County, N.Y. 'There is definitely a friendly rivalry between the American and Canadian players,' but, he added, 'Connor is a dual citizen so we joke that he's got to pick a side.' Reinman, who even Slater will admit is the best player right now, is the son of a Canadian mother and learned the game visiting the family farm in Blyth, Ont. 'There's no question it's Canada's game,' Molloy said. 'The top 20 players are all Canadian but that means we've got nothing to lose. What's the goal? To beat the Canadians.' The boardmaking market When it comes to boardmaking, Canada, too, has the market cornered for quality, and the tournament boards are made at nearby Tracey Boards. After a YouTube video went viral, 'We got more orders in three days than we usually got in a month," Jeremy Tracey said in his new boardmaking shop in Elmira, Ont. An apprentice of Willard Martin, who had been building boards in the region for three decades, Tracey hoped to hit 500 boards per year after hanging his own shingle at a smaller location in 2018. Demand has been such that he's moving several times that volume and employs a staff that includes a full-time craftsman plus three sons, Reid, Nolan and Garret. Their mother keeps the books. The growth in his business, Tracey said, is mainly through word-of-mouth and boots on the ground, specifically his (though he prefers flip-flops). He spends weeks on the road, travelling to tradeshows like PAX in the U.S. and Australia, where he hosts tournaments for beginners. Many place orders for boards on the spot. 'It's so fun, they get hooked. It snowballs from there.' A sold-out championship Back in Tavistock, this year's championship tournament sold out months ago and will include 400 players. 'An all-time record,' according to organizer Nathan Walsh. Of those competitors, a strong international contingent includes Ryotaro Fukuda, travelling from Japan. It's Fukuda's second time at worlds and this time, he's bringing an apprentice who will play as his doubles partner. The No. 2 U.K. player, Mike Ray, is also entered as are Dutch champions Sander Brugman and Joert Edink, known in their native Holland as The Roaring Twenties — a nod to the period garb they compete in. Hungary, too, is an emerging powerhouse with players flying in to compete. But the main draw is Reinman and Slater. For Reinman, a three-peat would cement his place in history, a feat only achieved once before, by Toronto's Brian Cook. For Slater, a sixth world title would solidify his G.O.A.T. status and put the record for most wins that much further from Reinman's reach — and put the top prize in Canada's oldest board game back in Canadian hands. Editing and layout by photo editor Showwei Chu and senior editor Lisa Johnson About the Author Related Stories Footer Links My Account Profile CBC Gem Newsletters Connect with CBC Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Mobile RSS Podcasts Contact CBC Submit Feedback Help Centre Audience Relations, CBC P.O. Box 500 Station A Toronto, ON Canada, M5W 1E6 Toll-free (Canada only): 1-866-306-4636 TTY/Teletype writer: 1-866-220-6045 About CBC Corporate Info Sitemap Reuse & Permission Terms of Use Privacy Jobs Our Unions Independent Producers Political Ads Registry AdChoices Services Ombudsman Public Appearances Commercial Services CBC Shop Doing Business with Us Renting Facilities Accessibility It is a priority for CBC to create a website that is accessible to all Canadians including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges. Closed Captioning and Described Video is available for many CBC shows offered on CBC Gem. About CBC Accessibility Accessibility Feedback © 2025 CBC/Radio-Canada. All rights reserved. Visitez
CBC
04-04-2025
- Business
- CBC
Ontario wine agents say it's 'unfair' province's grocery stores still selling California wines
Province's wine agents accuse LCBO of 'unfair policies' in handling the U.S. alcohol ban Caption: Staff at a Toronto LCBO remove American wine and spirits from store shelves on March 4 — part of an opening salvo in a cross border trade war sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's imposition of tariffs on Canadian goods. (Evan Mitsui/CBC) Ontario wine agents are accusing the Liquor Control Board of Ontario of "unfair policies" after California wines were pulled from LCBO shelves almost a month ago due to the ongoing trade dispute with the U.S., while grocery stores and retail giants like Costco and Loblaws are still allowed to sell the products. Agents say they are also frustrated by the LCBO's lack of communication about existing inventory and shipments still in transit from orders placed before the ban. On March 4, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that the LCBO would pull 3,600 U.S.-made alcohol products from its shelves in response to U.S. tariffs, urging consumers to support Canadian brands instead. Other provinces have also followed suit as part of a broader national response to the U.S. tariffs imposed on Canadian goods. While the LCBO says it has stopped selling American wines to grocery and convenience stores, "the decision to sell through existing inventory is at their discretion," it said in an emailed statement. The LCBO calls "agents" people or companies who are officially approved to work with it under its Consignment Program. These agents order alcohol from specific suppliers (like foreign wineries or distilleries) through the LCBO. They pay to store the products in LCBO warehouses and help organize sales, usually selling to bars and restaurants. Since the ban was instituted, agents aren't able to access any U.S. products from the LCBO. "But Costco still has hundreds of cases of California wine on their shelves because they (unlike myself) are allowed to warehouse their wines," said Mark McFadyen, director of Abcon International Wine Merchants Inc, a Toronto-based importer of Californian wine, in an email to CBC News. Costco did not respond to CBC News's request for information about their arrangement with the LCBO. But the LCBO said, "licensed retailers are responsible for storing all products purchased." Concerns with warehouse access and inventory McFadyen sells wines directly to restaurants and through LCBO's Vintages section. He says he had a "major release" of a California merlot in the LCBO's Vintages section, which means a special, limited-time offering of wine from California that isn't usually available on regular shelves. Now, he can't sell California wines to restaurants or even retrieve them from the warehouse. The LCBO manages the storage and warehousing of alcoholic products it sells, until distributed to LCBO stores or authorized retailers across Ontario. The agents normally pay for the storage. Agents were informed that they will no longer have to cover storage costs for U.S. products at LCBO warehouses starting March 4 due to the ban. However, agents argue that storage is only one of many ongoing concerns. Image | LCBO TRADE WAR Caption: Staff at a Toronto LCBO remove American wine and spirits from store shelves on March 4. 'Agents' are people or companies who are officially approved to work with the LCBO under its Consignment Program. These agents order alcohol from specific suppliers (like foreign wineries or distilleries) through the LCBO and help organize sales, usually selling to bars and restaurants. (Evan Mitsui/CBC) Open Image in New Tab "We don't know how they'll handle storage fees moving forward. For example, if my wine was in storage for 20 days before the ban, will the count continue from Day 21 on April 3? Or will it reset?" said Laura Rapuano, director of Airen Imports, another Toronto-based American wine importer. About 60 per cent of her income comes from Californian wines. During the June-October quarter of 2024, the LCBO sold $2.24 billion in wine — which accounted for about 28 per cent of its sales that quarter. American wines made up 20 per cent of the province's wine market share. In addition to storage issues, Rapuano is also concerned about inventory limits. Agents are restricted in how much stock they can have on hand and in transit. Although the LCBO said "inventory caps are not affected by the amount of U.S. products in storage," Rapuano is worried that if new stock from other countries arrives — something she is working on — she risks exceeding the limit and being unable to order more products if and when the ban is over. Impact on restaurants The effect of the LCBO's decision is being felt by restaurants across Ontario. Many owners have told agents they won't be putting California wines back on their menus, even if the ban on U.S. booze is eventually resolved. Many restaurants are in favour of the ban, according to Tony Elenis, president and CEO of the Ontario Restaurant Hotel & Motel Association. "Overall, Ontario restaurants have supported the government's decision to remove U.S. beverage alcohol products from LCBO listings," Elenis said. He added that some restaurants may still offer California wines, while they have stock, but many are instead highlighting Canadian wines from Ontario and British Columbia. Some restaurants are turning to alternatives from regions like Australia, New Zealand and France. However, Rapuano says importing a new wine isn't an overnight process. It involves finding a supplier, sampling the wines, completing the paperwork, getting a purchase order, and shipping. "It takes six to eight months. I can't just switch my business model in a month," she said. In the meantime, Rapuano says she has yet to receive a response from the LCBO regarding the emails she sent about her concerns. "I also emailed Premier Doug Ford, pointing out that grocery stores can still sell Florida orange juice, but I can't sell California wine," she said.
