Shuffleboard is actually a distant cousin of billiards, and has much in common with the television show Laverne & Shirley. How so? Both shuffleboard and Laverne & Shirley Maude were successful spin-offs. While Laverne & Shirley was a spin-off of the sitcom Happy Days, shuffleboard is, like billiards, a spin-off of lawn bowling. Although a distant cousin of billiards, which can also be traced back to lawn bowling, shuffleboard is closer to its other cousins curling and bocce ball.
The earliest known record of shuffleboard goes all the way back to England during the 13th century. (That means the 1200s.) Shuffleboard is also related to modern skateboarding in a fashion: both have been banned at one time or another. During its infancy stages, the game of shuffleboard was considered far too frivolous a pursuit for a proper Englishman to take part in and was thus actually banned for a period of time. During that early period, it was still yet to be known as shuffleboard. Too bad the original name didn’t keep, the game might be more popular today among the youth if they could just say they were going out to play a game of shove board or slide groat. Well, maybe not.
Shuffleboard made its first appearance on the shores of England West, or as I like to call it, the United States of America, sometime around that period when Henry David Thoreau was building a little cabin next to a pond called Walden. New England in the 1840s was the time and place for shuffleboard to take America by storm. Of course, almost from the beginning it was banned here as well. Not because it wasn’t a gentleman’s pursuit, of course. No, remember that even as late as the 1840s-heck, even as late as the 2000s-the Puritan strain still infected American society. Thus, shuffleboard in America was banned because it was thought to be a gambler’s game. Hard to imagine betting on shuffleboard, but, well, there it is.
The shuffleboard explosion didn’t really happen in America until around the turn of the last century. Just as it is now, shuffleboard was popular on cruise ships. And then, in 1913, an enterprising hotel entrepreneur in Florida put down the very first shuffleboard court and forever changed resort recreation; or least for over a half-century. They may be hard to find now, but as late as the 1970s one could find a shuffleboard court at just about every motel in the country.
Shuffleboard is a relatively easy game to play. And, like tennis or ping pong, it can be played in either singles or doubles versions. The official surface is 52 feet long and 6 feet wide. Located at each end of the court is a triangle with the point facing toward the other end. This triangle is divided into number sections. The point of the triangle is a 10, followed by two 8’s next to each other, followed by two 7s next to each other, followed by two more sections next to each other. In these sections you will find a 10 next to a box that says OFF. The players use a long stick to push a colored disc from one side of the court down to the triangle on the other side, attempting to land on the numbered sections. The defensive strategy involves trying to block the shots with the sliding of their own discs or knocking the discs out of the scoring area completely. Players push the discs in alternate turns by color. Each push must start within the 10-OFF area of the triangle and finish inside the scoring area.
The scores aren’t added up until all discs have been played. In order to count for a score, the disc must be completely within the numbered area and cannot touch the outside lines. Anything disc that slides beyond the 10-OFF area isn’t counted. If a disc slides on top of another disc it is counted. And, finally, the game isn’t won until a person achieves 75 points with the caveat that the game must be played to its conclusion before this final tally is counted. In other words, if you reach 75 points but there is still another round to play, you have to play that round in order to win.
