YORKTON – It is sometimes difficult to know where a backyard game ends, and a sport starts.
Which is Kubb, or Cornhole, or horseshoes, or Waddies?
Wait a minute Waddies – what is the world is that you may ask?
Well it’s a rather old game/sport which is getting a new life thanks to a group of buds in Ontario.
Andy Speers is one of the crew, and he told Yorkton This Week in a recent interview that Waddies dates back to the 1940s and 50s when it was quite popular in parts of Ontario (Fergus), primarily with local Legions.
“My grandpa was a Legion member. He had Waddies tournaments in his back yard,” explained Speers, adding his grandfather made Waddies sets gifting him one years ago.
For greater detail on the history of Waddies we turn to www.waddies.ca, where we find the origin basically lost to time – although there is a fun fiction piece that paints an interesting possible start to Waddies.
That said it does note that by “the 1950s, the game largely faded into memory. In one small Ontario town, however, the legacy of Waddies survived. The boys at Royal Canadian Legion No. 275 in Fergus built boards from plywood and cut holes about the size of a soup can. They tried metal washers instead of the wadded paper pucks but the washers damaged the floor when an enthusiastic toss went awry. They tried beanbags but the beanbags didn’t have the same action. Beanbags are for kids.
“Finally, Sergeant James “Nort” Norton found the solution. While he was visiting his grandmother one Sunday afternoon, he noticed the protective rubber castor cups under the legs of her sofa. He grabbed all six while she wasn’t looking. They were the perfect size and weight. Later that night, he showed them to the guys at the Legion. The grip was smooth. The smack of the disk on the plywood was sublime. Experienced tossers could float them flat through the air, while rookies made them wobble and roll. The age of modern Waddies had begun.”
Basically, Waddies is in the family of tossing games – perhaps most closely related to Washers.
In this one you toss rubber discs at wooden boxes which have a hole in the centre. Get the disc in it may be worth three points (an opponent’s Waddie in the hole cancels of course). Around the hole are marked circles and a Waddie there scores it closer to centre than an opponent’s piece – think curling.
In fact Speers notes Waddies has scoring quite similar to curling – which is by design as both are very Canadian endeavours.
Fast forward a few decades and COVID hits giving Speers and some buddies time to daydream a bit.
Ten of them tossed a thousand bucks each in a pot with the idea of recreating Waddies.
“Our wives said the thousand dollars was just so we could hang out with our buddies,” said Speers. “In the back of our minds we probably thought the same thing.”
The gang redesigned the boards a bit and launched Waddies without a great deal of expectations.
But, interest has been there.
“It’s going way way better than we ever expected it to,” said Speers, adding they’ve sold some 2000 units with sales to every province, into the US and even a couple to Europe. “. . . It doesn’t seem like a ton, but it’s way more that we ever expected.”
Speers said they are now beginning to dream a bit bigger.
They are working on a version of Waddies that would fit into the retail market better, with an eye on coast-to-coast distribution, perhaps with the help of a ‘dragon’ as they head to the upcoming season of Dragon’s Den.
Speers said they are also starting a National Waddies League, an online resource to track events and participants, a way to build community.
And they are hosting events that again look to build the profile of Waddies.
So, how is Waddies to play?
Well in a word it’s ‘hard’. The rubber disc needs to land flat or, as rubber tends to do, the disc bounces – usually off the board.
Speers said they recognize a level of skill is required with Waddies.
“We embrace that,” he said. “We love the fact you’ve got to work harder to be good at it. Games shouldn’t be easy. They should be hard.”
So don’t pick up Waddies expecting it to be Cornhole easy. This one is likely akin to horseshoes in terms of needing practice to be even middling good at it.
That won’t suit all, if you just want a backyard distraction. This one wants to be more – and if you elevate thinking about it as a sport not as a game, then the effort is more acceptable.
Oh, and it should be mentioned while Waddies can be played outdoors, the rubber discs do not fly well in a prairie wind. Calm days or inside play for this one.
