Robert Davidson & Paul Weber publish the Pacific Coast Shuffleboard News 8 times a year to more than 200 subscribers.

A fine example of what a newsletter can look like. I will not be posting the contents of their newsletter but wanted to share the over all look and feel of the publication. This issue happened to be 20 pages jam packed with interesting shuffleboard news. I will take it and show it off at league!

The following article appears with permission of the Pacific Coast Shuffleboard News.

Thanks Robert and Paul!

---Change Hammer---
A Strong Wind

For awhile it must have seemed that a gale force wind was blowing directly into the face and plans of Northern California shuffleboard promoter, computer programmer and player Ed Brayman from Manteca. Brayman is the promoter of last year’s very successful President’s Day tournament held in Modesto that drew more than 100 players from all locations on the west coast and paid out nearly $50,000 in prize money. It was a huge success.

Last year Brayman decided to bring the holiday event back to its former status as one of the country’s top drawing pro tournaments. The event had been held at Blinky’s Sports Cafe, a large cocktail lounge located in Santa Clara for years. In February of each year the tournament drew the country’s top professional players. Brayman’s earliest memories of shuffleboard include watching some of the country’s legends of the game compete at Blinky’s on President’s Day. One day Blinky’s sold and the new owners decided that hosting the shuffleboard tournament was not a top priority.

About that time Brayman moved to the fast-growing San Joaquin County community of Manteca and began playing at John Azevedo’s 133 Club. The tournament came along with Brayman and each year Azevedo and his wife Lucy would host, while Brayman would run a smaller version of the Santa Clara event. Brayman grew restless as he became determined to bring back the top professional players to a high dollar President’s Day tournament in Northern California. The 133 Club was not big enough to accommodate Brayman’s plans.

He began in the summer of 2003 laying plans for a big event. Brayman had one big advantage with the President’s Day weekend. There were no other major tournaments scheduled for that date on the west coast. So he got busy - spending countless hours talking to local fraternal organizations with room enough to host a major shuffleboard tournament. All to no avail as cost, conflicting dates and other problems kept him knocking on several doors. He finally was able to strike a deal with the new owners of T’s Cocktails in Modesto – ten minutes or so from Manteca. The bar was spacious and convenient and well suited to host a tournament that required at least six shuffleboards.

Next up was finding shuffleboards for the tournament. Enter Bill Maxwell and his Great West Shuffleboard Company. The two-reached an agreement that included Maxwell’s company providing six brand new Venture shuffleboards at a reasonable rental cost. It also included the logistical problem of transporting the shuffleboards by ship from the East Coast, which required a pickup at the Port of Stockton. On top of this the boards were shipped only days before the tournament. Then came the set-up, adjusting and the hopes that enough players would show up to help defray the cost of the board rental fees.

Though these matters came together late Brayman had started earlier in 2003 by promoting the tournament through his many contacts in shuffleboard. Telephone calls and the Internet provided a means of spreading the word. He used his own website Eddie’s Shuffleboard Corner as a tool in seeking comments and preferences from players to help create the event’s amateur format - the professional players format was already set in stone. After all, the tournament was designed to attract the country’s top pro players. He then ran a list of entrants on the website.

The result of his hard work was a finely tuned tournament that was the biggest and the highest paying shuffleboard event in recent California history. And the pro players came. The country’s number one rated player Darroll Nelson from Oregon, the Shuffleboard Federation’s John McDermott from Michigan, Washington’s Dan Hitt, Sacramento Hall of Fame player Hal Perry, former California resident Maxwell also from Oregon, Nick Chaffin from Roseville, Bob Hunt and Joe Hudson from Sacramento, the Southern California team of Dudley Hutcherson and Karl Spicklemier, Cerritos’ Joe Muniz, Stockton’s George Camara, Auburn’s Freddy Thuman (who was inducted into California’s Hall of Fame during the tournament) and David Keithahn from Tulare. Oklahoma legend Bill Melton had committed to playing but at the eleventh hour was forced to withdraw due to personal reasons.

Following such a successful tournament one would think that the 2005 edition would be a snap with no worries. Not so as Brayman encountered the same familiar problems. Shuffleboards and the rental cost became problem numero uno. Followed closely by location. Brayman was very happy with the T’s layout, but felt that a fraternal organization’s hall or meeting room, similar to the Eagle’s lodge in Exeter and Huntington Beach’s Moose Lodge, would serve the board layout better. His search for a place to play was still a problem as no lodge or hall, with a low rental cost, presented itself. The shuffleboard situation was the most serious though. The six Venture boards had all been sold and now reside in homes and lounges up and down the west coast. Six months after the successful comeback tournament Brayman began to resolve himself to offering the tournament date to others.

And there were plenty of takers. Shuffleboard groups with the desired facilities in Southern Oregon, Central and Southern California were all sympathetic to Brayman’s problems but were also eager to have next year’s President’s Day date. Shuffleboard promoters on the west coast, particularly southern Oregon and California, had always respected the Northern California date, and with an unspoken agreement had never scheduled a conflicting tournament against the President’s Day weekend. Brayman held off giving the date away realizing that an open date could possibly lead to split tournaments and the loss of the two prestigious pro events. There are only two or three major open tournaments on the pro’s west coast calendar and Brayman was resolved to keep the date and the history of the event in Northern California. The loss of the tournament to that area would be devastating as there are not many tournaments, amateur or pro, available to the region’s players.

Fortune soon struck and Brayman is now back on track pounding the pavement and beating the drums as he did so well last year for the 2004 event. Arriving like a strong jolt of Starbuck’s coffee was long-time friend Lorraine Olson, who is most assuredly one of the country’s strongest supporters of the game. The two friends got together and plans for next year are back on track and gone is a lot of Brayman’s mental anguish. She is now co-promoter of the tournament.

Olson is very active with the National Shuffleboard Hall of Fame and was the driving force behind the recent induction of the Shuffleboard Federation’s John McDermott at this year’s North American Shuffleboard Championships in Reno and a strong advocate of a national organization for the sport she loves. Each year she travels, supports and plays in most of the country’s major tournaments. Olson, who lives in Santa Clara, continues to play at Blinky’s, where the two friends met a few years ago, whenever her busy schedule allows and is ranked among the best lady players in California. She was a member of Brayman’s tournament committee last year in Modesto.

Next, while relaxing one recent afternoon at the 133 Club, Brayman met a member of the V.F.W. Post in Ripon, a small California farming community located along Highway 99 just a few miles south of Manteca. The conversation eventually led to a commitment from the post to hold this year’s tournament. Next came a commitment from Spokane’s Hitt to deliver six or more shuffleboards to the V.F.W. Post in February. Everything else has just seemed to fall in place.

Like we stated in the first issue of the Pacific Coast Shuffleboard News, if there was an award for promoter of the year in California, Brayman would have won hands down. Thanks to his efforts Northern California shuffleboard has retained this tremendous tournament filled with memories from days long ago at Blinky’s. The sun is once again shining through the winter fog that covers the central San Joaquin valley this time of year. Oh and the gale force wind that was blowing into Brayman’s face is now at his back.

Robert Davidson
Pacific Coast Shuffleboard News

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