New petanque blog in Japan

Aoyama Petanque, an informal group of of petanque enthusiasts are proud to announce their debut on the Web with this blog. For more information on this group of keen petanque players in Tokyo, ... read more

Good luck to this new group! And thanks for making the blog bilingual, so we can follow the developments.

FYI Aoyama is a well-known area in Tokyo, with many French cafes and restaurants. It is a nice place to stroll and gaze at the chic boutiques on a sunny afternoon. And obviously now also to play boules.

Petanque Magazine

Petanque Magazine is thé French reference about petanque events of the preceding year. All French major tournaments, regional & World Championships, it's all in the 84 pages of glossy pictures, results and reviews.
Guess what! They dedicated a full page to our Petanque America Open. Definitely a première.

Here's is a JPEG of the page you can click on - until we upload a more legible PDF file.
Thanks very much to the editors of Petanque Magazine for putting us in the spotlight.


Update:
if you'd like a copy of the magazine, just email us your address and we will have one sent to you.

Open Florida Trophy 2006

Boca Petanque 2000 announces their Open Florida Trophy, on January 28 & 29.

Formed doublettes.
$ 400 minimum prizes + $ 20 with each entry fee.
Entry fee: $ 30 per team if paid by Jan 20 / $ 40 after Jan 20

The Florida Trophy is open to all petanque players, however the Florida Trophy will stay in Florida.
Four to six prizes, depending on the number of players.
Luncheon will be served to all the participants of the Florida Trophy.

Sat Jan 28:
Practice all after afternoon.
4 pm - deadline for inscription
5 pm - drawing for the Florida Trophy
Wine and nibbles served, compliments of Boca Petanque 2000

Sun Jan 29:
9 am - Florida Trophy

Separately a Social Tournament:
Doublettes 'from the hat' - $ 6 per player, 4 to 6 prizes depending on the number of players.
Registration before 9 am on Jan 29. Bring your lunch.

Registration: John Rolland, 5788 Wind Drift Lane, Boca Raton, FL 33433 -
Phone: 561-392-3141

Directions to the club at Boca Petanque 2000

2006

Here we are again!
All the orders for the holidays are out the door, year end inventory almost done, and we are ready for a new, exciting year.
First of all thanks to all of you who have supported and helped us in the past. We wish you and yours the very best for 2006 and of course - many carreaux!

Petanque courts at Pit Stop, Brooklyn

Since we're talking about Laurent with the yellow shoes (and the yellow hat) , we should mention that he has 4 petanque courts in the terrace garden behind his restaurant. This may not be the right season, but do keep it in mind for the spring: good food, cold drinks, and a couple of rounds of petanque in between.










Pit Stop recently got a nice write up in New York Press.
The place is loaded with Formula 1 memorabilia, Laurent's other hobby.
Pit Stop
127 Columbia St. (waterfront)
Brooklyn, NY
718-875-4664

Bastille Day petanque tournaments

Going through our picture archives I found this colorful poster of our last Bastille Day Tournament in Brooklyn.
What a day! 135 triplet teams, on a limited amount of courts, in a one-day competition. Things got inevitably delayed to the extent that unfortunately we had to stop the final game halfway under pressure from the police department: normal trafic and bus routes had to be restored, "now"!

Jack from BarTabac was at the Miami Open: actually he came second in the consolante with his friend Laurent Brunacci (the one with the bright yellow shoes..) from Pit Stop Cafe in Brooklyn.
We all agreed that in 2006 we (a) have to start earlier, and (b) need a lot more courts.

Miami New Times

Here's a link to the article the Miami New Times - Miami's prominent and omnipresent free newspaper - wrote to announce our tournament. I don't recall having mentioned Mexico as a participating country; I did mention France...
Oh well, the main thing is that they wrote about it, for which we are very grateful. It attracted several curious (and thirsty) onlookers.

By the way, in the States we are used to people referring to petanque as "French bocce", bocce being the better known of the two. In New Zealand it's the other way round: in this article about the Special Olympics being held in Christchurch this week, the writer describes bocce as "Italian petanque".

La Boule NY teams

Of all the American clubs that flew in for the Open, La Boule New Yorkaise was represented with the highest number of participants: 7 full teams and 4 partial teams.
Here's an almost complete group picture with Xavier & Ray, Patrick & Matthias (from Karlsruhe, Germany), Christophe & Ernesto, Richard & Nicholas, Franck & Eric, Lucien & Guy, Jean-Pierre and Mamary.
Missing a.o. is Alec who came second with Canadian teammate Yacob.

Lake Anna teams, boules & blues

Who can forget the musical quartet from Lake Anna, Virginia?
Glen (better known as 'Smiley' for obvious reasons), Gary, Randy and Tim discovered petanque only this spring while in the French Caribbean and got hooked right away. Now going by the name "Team Dockside" they also surprised us with an impromptu guitar & harmonica performance at Friday night's dinner.
This picture does not do them justice because for once they are not smiling - but it's the only one we have so far.
They still have a bit of fine tuning to do in the petanque department, but when it comes to close harmony, rythm, major 7 and augmented 9 chords, they were the outright champions of the Open. Only Smiley, the bass player, couldn't bring his 'tool of the trade' but we'll make it a point to set him up with a bass next time around.
Whenever they hold a tournament in Lake Anna, we're going!

New petanque club in Chicago

A message from Daniel Danielson:

Come join us and have fun. Open to all Petanque lovers in the Chicago area. From beginners to tournament players... all are welcome.
Here's their web site. Nice logo!
It's striking how many creative people one finds in the petanque community.

German team report

On behalf of the German Petanque Federation, Alex Bauer presented us with one of their pretty embroidered pennants. It received a prominent place in our office and we hope it will be the start of large collection in years to come.

From the report he posted yesterday on their Club site we can conclude he and his teammate Manfred had a great time in Miami. It's in German of course but even if your German is rusty, the pictures alone are worth a visit. Very nice of them to mention our friend Aaron, now a Florida resident, who used to play in Munich. Of course they had some friends in common.

A bit of disappointment their end in that - although they won 7 out of 8 preliminary games - they did not make it to the quarter finals. Indeed, the format was unusual for certain reasons, and not the norm in traditional competitions in the US. The fact that Alex and Manfred's hotel room was on top of a bar that blasted music until 5:30 AM on Sunday morning did not help either...
Of all the teams that came, they had the longest flight. We're certainly glad they made it!

Meeting place for S. Florida players

Many folks who participated in, or walked by the tournament agreed that the spot is a perfect location to use as a permanent gathering place for South Florida petanque players.
South Beach, at Ocean Drive & 14th Street.
Central, well known, always available, with lots of space and very attractive. With a variety of surfaces: from soft to hard, with or without stones. From easy to very challenging. With Starbucks, Front Porch Cafe and the Winterhaven Bar only steps away.
And - amazing but true - parking is plentiful in the mornings. Either on a meter at $ 1 an hour, or at the 13th St Municipal garage.

A few us met and decided that - for starters - Saturday mornings at 10 AM would be the most suitable time for all. December is a busy time for everyone, so you may or may not find other players but as from Saturday January 8 someone will be there every Sat morning, with spare boules for anyone to try.
South Beach Petanque Blog

Dave Barry at the Open

Most players were very focused on their games and may not have noticed that our third guest for the weekend, Dave Barry (far left) came by on Sunday with his lovely wife and daughter.
He had announced the Open on his blog the week before:


ATTENTION SPORTS FANS
If somebody told you that you had a chance to play in a major international petanque tournament, I'm sure your immediate reaction would be: "A what?"
That was certainly my reaction the first time I was invited to a petanque tournament. It was on Miami Beach back in 2003, and I wound up writing a column about it, as well as making a new friend, Philippe Boets, a mildly deranged Belgian man who wants petanque to become a huge sport in America. This is never, ever going to happen, but it sure is fun to watch Philippe try. It's also fun to attend a petanque tournament, in which it is not always easy to tell who is playing, and who is spectating, and who is just lying on the ground. The sport, which was invented by the French, involves tossing little balls around, in between a lot of eating and drinking.
I bring this up because Philippe is bringing the Open International Petanque Tournament back to Miami Beach this weekend. Naturally, since this is an international tournament, participation is strictly limited to pretty much anybody who shows up and pays the registraton fee. I myself plan to have a team there on Sunday. We're training hard; several key players have already had indigestion. So if you're looking for something different and fun to do in South Florida this weekend, why not go bowling?
No, seriously, come on out to the Open. You might catch Petanque Fever!
Then you will need shots.

He brought his friend Andre (far right) who joined the Michigan boys while Dave reinforced a hastily assembled Miami team consisting of two Belgians. We kicked serious butt against a.o. Jeff, Joe and Ken who filled in between their own games. There's no doubt, Dave is a natural, not only as a pointer, but also in the "trash talking" department which - as we all know - is a required ingredient of petanque when you're playing for fun. "Compliments" were flying back & forth. He also reminded me to stop saying Mitchigan. "They're ain't no T in Michigan".
Of course, Dave carried his CrapCam, a hi-tech marvel with a resolution of almost 10 pixels, to document his victory over the Michigan team for the Monday morning update:

Petanque Update
I went over to Miami Beach yesterday and competed in the big petanque tournament. It was physically very demanding -- sometimes after tossing the little ball (or boule) you have to walk as far as 20 feet (5.95847 liters) with nowhere to sit and nothing to eat or drink. But it was a good character-building experience, as well as an opportunity to hang around in a masculine fashion with other manly male petanque players, who can be seen in this exclusive CrapCam photo holding their boules.

His latest book "Dave Barry's Money Secrets" is due out in January, a must for anyone who wants to become happy while penniless. With lots of pictures of Suze Orman.
The weekend after the Open he performed timeless, excellent rock & roll hits at the Miami Book Fair together with his writer-musician-friends, a.o. Amy Tan, Scott Turow, Ridley Pearson, Greg Iles & Kathi Goldmark, aka the Rock Bottom Remainders.
Busy life!

Snowboules

France, actually most of W. Europe suddenly got hit by a major cold front this week. The temperature drop was amazing.
This is what could happen if it stays that way for a few days.

JP Jardinet meanwhile also posted a complete and very positive report (in French) on boulistenaute.com about the tournament. It is bound to convince more European teams to make the step across the ocean the next time. Thanks JP!

Pictures from the French team

The tournament winners, Jean-Pierre & Michel are back home in France and settled in. Jean-Pierre is also an editor of the online petanque magazine "boulistenaute.com", and posted a serie of 31 nice pictures on their site.
Direct link to the album

And below are the semi-finalists, Alec Stone Sweet and Yacob Nour. So, we had 3 different nationalities in the finals (France, USA & Canada) - worthy of an international tournament!

Slideshows

You must all have seen Dominique of the South Florida Petanque Club shooting hundreds of pictures last weekend, anytime she was not competing herself.
Well, she put them all together in 3 beautiful slideshows, with funny comments and music for all of us to enjoy.

You can watch them either as a slideshow or in album format. Since it's in Flash, you can't save them from your screen. But Dominique says she can email individual photos to anyone who would like some. Her email address.

There are 3 slidehows:
Friday's registration & dinner
Saturday's dinner
Sunday's finals and prize awards

Thank you very, very much, Dominique!

Tournament results & teams

The results as from the 1/4 finals of the main tournament and the consolante are now on our website. Most of you probably did not notice that with the rain and wind at the end, some of our paperwork got wet and some flew away. So we needed to do some "reconstruction". As soon as possible we will upload a complete team list so people can see who was here.

Scoreboards

Thanks to Hans & Tom of the Valley of the Moon Petanque Club in Sonoma, CA we had original scoreboards during some of the finals. No need for electricity, no technical glitches and clearly visible for everyone. A swell idea - maybe they should patent it!

Hans & Tom run the only weekly radio show with a segment about petanque in the country - maybe in the world?
You can hear their show via internet every Tuesday from 5 to 7 PM PST on www.ksvy.org

In the top picture is Joe Zajac - President of the Michigan Petanque Club - scoring talking scores with the two charming scoreboard ladies.

Tournament pictures

As usual - busy with plenty other things during the competition - we have a limited amount of pictures.

Please send any photos you want to share to us (up to 10 Mb) or let us know where to find them on the net.

Jeff of the Detroit Petanque Club has already uploaded a beautiful set - like this one on the right - here.
Every team he and Don played against is documented. Great souvenirs.

Police and First Aid

To some of our overseas readers (we notice there are more and more -- thanks for visiting) this may sound strange:
anytime we organize an event in a public place, we need to hire off duty police and paramedics.
Fortunately, petanque being peaceful and safe, they never have to get into action. Needless to say, they all know petanque inside out by the time the event is finished.

Tournament format

When planning the tournament we knew:
(a) teams will be flying in from far, spending $$ on airfare and lodging
(b) the difference in skill levels will be substantial
That's why we used a somewhat unconventional format to match up the teams, so that all teams would play a maximum amount of games, against a maximum amount of different teams.
It is a bit more complicated than traditional grids (that's why Mario needed Tylenol here & there) but worth it.
Of course there is always room for some fine tuning for next time.

Team positions

Then came the drawing of the team positions. Although a couple of players had to cancel, three teams flew in unexpectedly from New York, and we started with 72 doubles exactly.
15 states were represented: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Florida, Maine, Massachussets, Michigan, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virgina.
Plus two teams from Germany, two from Colombia, Madagascar, Mali and... France.
An absolute 'first' in the history of American petanque!
Of the 144 players, 33 were (and still are) ladies.

Tournament briefing

Mario Olivieri and Yngve Biltsted, ready for the briefing. Since we mixed folks who have been playing for only 6 months with very experienced players we asked the latter for an extra dose of sportsmanship. As an incentive we announced a special prize for the most courteous teams.
We heard from many teams later on that - although they lost 13 to 0 - they truly enjoyed their game and getting playing tips and help with the rules from the other team.

Channel 10 - ABC

Our second guest was Miami radio & TV personality Paul Castronovo.
Fun and witty as always.
He wanted to know everything about the game, even more so about any drinks that can go with it...