BoardBits.com™	September 29, 2007	Volume 7, Number 1
Shuffleboard's biggest tournament, the North American Shuffleboard Championships™, begins 4 weeks from today. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the nearly 100 people who have already registered to play. This puts the 2007 NASC™ on pace for another full capacity turnout. Just a reminder, if you are planning on attending the tournament, but have not yet have not yet signed up, the early registration deadline is October 6. If you would like to use a credit card for your entry fees, you can register online at www.2007nasc.com, or over the phone by calling 800-380-3033. Despite higher fuel prices, some of the cheapest airfares we have ever seen are currently available. The best website to check airfares is www.sidestep.com (thanks Kathy). For room and airfare packages, the best deals are usually at the American Airlines web site, www.aavacations.com. Please give us a call at 800-380-3033 if you need help with your travel plans. In evaluating the 2006 NASC™, I know that the boards did not play as well as I would have liked, or as well as the participants had a right to expect. Some of the players were upset about this, and understandably so. As a player, I have always felt that nothing is more important than the quality of the boards that the tournament is played on. Years ago I told the people at the Sands Regency that, from an administrative standpoint, if you did everything right in running the tournament, but had bad boards, most of the participants would feel that it was a bad tournament. Conversely, if you had great boards, but made mistakes from an administrative standpoint, the participants would still tend to feel it was a good tournament. That conversation with the hotel eventually lead to the Sands Regency helping us to acquire the boards which we now use for the tournament. One of the challenges in running a tournament in Nevada is that the very dry conditions cause the boards to become high centered. Those of you who attended some of the earlier North American championships know that high centered boards used to be a serious problem for us. That same problem contributed greatly to the demise of the PCSA tournaments in Las Vegas. When we obtained the boards which we now use for the tournament, we knew we would have to take measures to ensure that they too did not become high centered. Consequently, a storage room for the tables was set up on the property at the Sands Regency. This room contains humidifying equipment to keep the boards from drying out. Over time, the high humidity conditions have caused the boards to swell up. As you know, the playing surface of a shuffleboard table contains many individual pieces of wood, which are laminated together to form the finished product. When a board swells up, some of the individual pieces of wood expand more than others. That causes serious inconsistencies in the way the boards play. Because we remain firmly committed to running the best tournament in shuffleboard, we have addressed this issue in three ways. First, we have lowered the humidity in the storage area. This has already helped significantly. Second, we have added additional staff to our setup crew, including Glen Tubbs and Mark Gray. Third, we have begun refinishing the boards. The first group of refinished boards will be in play at the 2007 NASC™ and the rest will be ready for 2008. The remodeling at the Sands is now complete and includes the addition of their new signature restaurant, Fuzio Universal Pasta. This is a great compliment to the other new restaurants, El Sombrero, which opened at this time last year and the improved buffet which has all you can eat breakfast on the weekends and the cooked to order New York Strip Steak buffet in the evenings. The El Sombrero, which is open for lunch and dinner, is conveniently located right next to the shuffleboard tournament in the former location of the Palm Court. One of the tournament highlights in recent years has been the Friday night anniversary parties, which include a complimentary extensive buffet and a two hour open bar. As we celebrate the 18th year of the NASC™ this year, we know it will be hard to match last year's extravaganza, which included Sol Lipkin's 100th Birthday Party, but we promise you that you will not soon forget. The festivities this year will include the presentation of the Sol Lipkin Award to Larry Creakbaum of Indiana, and the TSA Hall of Fame induction for Fred Thumann. Following the awards presentation is the raffle drawing. Some of the top prizes in the raffle include sets of Pro Series Weights®, weight cases, tournament shirts and jackets and a Jacuzzi Suite for 10 nights for the 2007 NASC™. We are looking for donations of other prizes for the raffle and would appreciate donations of shirts from other tournaments and/or shuffleboard establishments. After the raffle will be the $10,000 cash give away, in which 50 randomly drawn players will win $200, courtesy of the Sands. To give everyone a chance to enjoy themselves and visit with shuffleboard friends, old and new, no tournaments games will be played on Friday night. To print Tournament forms and information, please use the following links: Registration Form, Schedule of Events, and General Information. If you have never been to the NASC™, there has never been a better time to find out why, over the past ten years, more players have attended the NASC™ than any other tournament. If you need help making air or hotel reservations, or have any questions about the tournament, please call The Shuffleboard Federation at 800-380-3033. John McDermott, Tournament Director