It does not feel like 40 years but checking my calendar, noticing my 55th birthday cards on the mantle and admiring the slippers I received as a gift from my wife and the boys it shocks me into the realization that it is indeed 40 years.
40 years since I first picked up a cue in anger, I remember it so well.
There I was at Ace Billiards in Vancouver on table 3 playing with a friend I had just recently met through a mutual musician friend, we all had an interest in guitar at that time and this love of music and Billiards would continue for most of my life.
I actually first picked up a cue a few years earlier when my elementary schools best friends parents who were expats from the UK put a 5x10 snooker table in their basement. I was about 10 at the time we played a few times and I loved the sound of the balls clicking and the thunk of the ball hitting the leather on the back of the pocket, the satisfaction of accomplishment when the ball goes in and you get another turn.
This brush with snooker didn’t last long, as kids do we found other interests and moved on. Later when I was about 14 we had a 4x8 pool table in our own basement and I played occasionally but never really took it seriously. Then one day I was invited to Ace billiards by my friend to play a little on the big tables.
Ace billiards was the follow up to Chenier hall after that closed. Big Bill Werbeniuks regular haunt when he was home from the UK and occasionally Cliff Thorburn or Kirk Stevens would drop by, there was always a good player in the house so it was here that I learned quite a bit about the game. There were only 4 Brunswick Anniversary snooker tables and a bar box at Ace, the game of choice in Canada had always been snooker.
The game on table 3 went quite well that day and I remember clearing the colours to win against my friend who was a decent player at the time and that set me on the road to falling in love with the game.
Around 1979 I decided I wanted to spend some time in the UK and having expat parents myself I went to stay with relatives for a year and ended up staying for 13 years but that is another story.
During the 80’s snookers heyday I played and watched snooker on TV religiously. Cliff Thorburn became world champion in 1980 and Canada had 3 players in the top 8 in the world, Cliff along with Billy and Kirk Stevens were regulars on the TV. Alain Robidoux came through in the late 80’s early 90’s and was the last of the more successful Canadian professionals.
We had some other pro's during those years with Bob Chaperon, Mario Morra, and Marcel Gavreau etc. trying to make their mark but they were faced with an upcoming generation of coached and groomed young British players that ultimately proved too strong for these aging club players, Canada also had a number of great amateur players during these years.
The players of this era were club players and played because they loved the game, most were not coached or pushed into the game because it was not a respected sport and there was no legitimate living to be made it just happened that the game became successful and the players of the day were lucky enough to be along for the ride.
Returning to Canada with my family in the early 90’s I found that Pool had taken over much of the space in the pool rooms, the tournaments were all pool and most of the snooker players had either quit turned their hands to pool or just gotten too old but pool seemed to be doing pretty well and there were still new rooms popping up around Vancouver so I followed suit and myself spent more time playing 9 ball.
Over the last 5 years or so the 9 ball has dried up, lots of rooms closed, many good players don’t even play anymore and there has not been a serious 9 ball tournament around here for years. Snooker is about as dead as John Cleeses parrot, the winds of change have blown through the world of pocket billiards.
I have some ideas on what caused this plague, could be technology and the distractions it brings to young people or a push for more active sports from the new generation, but whatever the cause or causes I cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel. I know snooker had some past issues even in the UK with the loss of tobacco money, poor management and such but Barry Hearn entered the fray and has managed to turn this around. We are now seeing growth in Europe and China and some resurgence in the UK.
So after this brief history lesson according to me
I am still left with the question of what if anything can be done to resurrect the sport in Canada.
Keep in mind we have very poor local and national associations, well more like lame ducks really that have done nothing to promote or grow the sport in Canada and cannot be relied upon any time soon to change.
Where do we go from here?, accept that the sport is dead and move on with our lives or put our heart and soul into something that likely will end in disappointment.
We need to start grass roots and develop new young talent but in order to do that the game needs exposure to show that this can be a sound professional career choice with great rewards at the top or at least provide a good living as with golf, tennis or ice hockey, it needs credibility.
Credibility that can really only be achieved with television exposure. TV exposure requires demand or at the very least proven returns on advertising investment but I suspect we are at the chicken and egg juncture in Canada with this. I don’t honestly know the answer or even where to start making progress but I do know 100% that continuing with the current trend this great sport is lost in this country and that’s sad when you look at where we were in the 1980’s.
