News from Ontario

After a fantastic season with 27 tournaments held in Canada, the first events of the year in the country will be held in the next few days. Calgary had already announced a tournament for September 15. Now the guys from Hamilton have confirmed they will have an event on September 14. Interested players can contact Peter Sexton at peter.sexton@ymail.com

Peter has also officially become the WASPA contact for Ontario.

Subbuteo in Montreal

Montreal players have now a blog at http://subbuteomontreal.blogspot.ca/
Hopefully it will generate interest all over the Montreal area!

Canadian players in the FISTF rankings

After some months of trouble, FISTF has just released the world rankings of December 2012 and January 2013. In december, David Baxter was 425th in the Open ranking, and 228th in the veterans table. In January he was 426th in the Open section and 226th in the veterans ranking.

A new FISTF Board has been elected last saturday in Issy-les-Moulineaux (France). Luis Filipe Horta (Portugal) is the new president. Vincent Coppenolle (Belgium) is General Secretary, Fred Vulpes (Germany) is Finances director, Joe Zammit Pavia (Malta) is communication director, George Drazinakis (Greece) is sports Director and Thoms Petersen (Denmark) is marketing director.

Some new from Canada

The next tournaments will be held on February 3 in Hamilton (Ontario) and on February 10 in Calgary (Alberta).

In the latest WASPA ranking, Peter Sexton is now 7th while Shane Hoopfer is 15th. 528 players from 28 nations are included.

Canada is now 4th in the ranking of nations with 144 points while the top 3 nations are Malta (188), Belgium (182) and Italy (150).

2 more tournaments in Canada

Two tournaments have been added for the month of January. On January 1 at 3 pm, there will be a tournament in Calgary, Alberta. Interested players should contact Shane Hoopfer for details at Hoop27@gmail.com

The Hamilton Subbuto Club in southern Ontario will also meet on January 13 at Peter Sexton's. Interested players can contact Peter at peter.sexton@ymail.com

Tournaments in Calgary and Hamilton

There will be some more tournaments in December.
- December 8: tournament in Calgary (Alberta). Contact: Shane Hoopfer at Hoop27@gmail.com
- December 9: tournament in Hamilton (Ontario): Contact: Peter Sexton at peter.sexton@ymail.com

Subbuteo TV ad from Italy

Well done subbuteo for launching this TV ad for the italian market and good luck!

Some news from Canada

Last month Shane Hoopfer won the second tournament held by the club of Calgary.

Last week, on November 18, David Baxter won the 3rd WASPA tournament held in Calgary. He beat Shane Hoopfer in the final.


Players interested to attend the tournament in Hamilton (Canada) on November 24 can contact Peter Sexton at peter.sexton@ymail.com

Finally, the next tournament in Calgary (Canada) has already been set up. it will take place on December 30th. Interested players should contact Shane Hoopfer at Hoop27@gmail.com

A top video about subbuteo

Peter Sexton in WASPA history

Congratulations to Peter Sexton for being the first winner of a WASPA tournament in Canada. The tournament held in Toronto on sunday had only 4 players but it was a special day because Canada had not had any tournament for more than two years. The group stage saw Peter Sexton finishing on top (9 points), Stephen McNab being second, Jeff Watts third and Allan Thornton fourth. In the semis, Stephen beat Jeff while Peter beat Allan. In the final, Peter beat Stephen (2-0) while Jeff beat Allan in the third place final (3-0).

A tournament in Calgary

There will be a tournament in Calgary (Canada) on September 23. Interested players can get details about the event from Shane Hoopfer at Hoop27@gmail.com

New forum

Canadian subbuteo fans can now discuss on the brand new forum at the following address: http://canadiansubbuteo.proboards.com/index.cgi

A tournament in Toronto

For the first time in years, there will be a tournament in Toronto on September 16th. Interested players should contact Allan Thornton at allan@torontosubbuteo.com
The tournament will count  for the WASPA circuit.
Let's hope it will be the first tournament of many others in Canada!

A New Players Guide To All These Acronyms

So you are the proud owner of a shiny new Subbuteo set or perhaps you dusted off your old set that had been sitting in your parents attic for the past 20 years. After setting it all up and flicking the guys around you think to yourself ‘Hey I should see what’s out there on the internet for information’ So you fire up your computer and type Subbuteo into the search engine and see hundreds of pages all full of acronyms. That can be a little daunting for someone who wants to find somebody to play against or perhaps a way to get the most out of your set. Fortunately for you I’m here to help!

National Associations

I’m going to concentrate on the North American Associations for now since but there are associations all over the world so don’t be shy about looking around at a few different sites. Google Translate can be your friend to check out some information on European associations.

CSTFA- Canadian Sports Table Football Association. Table Football is just a fancy name for Subbuteo which was created by the major governing international association. (I’ll cover that later) The Canadian site has a ton of links and information that can help you find players in your area, as well as links to shopping for new gear. You’ll find them at http://cstfa.webs.com/

ASA- American Subbuteo Association. Lots of information about Subbuteo in America. The forums are fairly active and you can find numerous clubs across most of the USA there as well as links to shopping. Check them out at http://www.americansubbuteo.com/

International Governing Bodies

You are going to see these mentioned a lot when you are searching online. There are two organizations that basically offer world rankings and the ability to compete internationally if you so desire!

FISTF- Federation International Sports Table Football. This would be considered the ‘big leagues’ of Table Football. Twenty years ago this group formed with the premise of turning Subbuteo into more of a sport rather than just a social game. The biggest advantages to FISTF is they are all over the Subbuteo world and are very well structured. Sometimes that structure can be a negative as it can be more difficult for nations with smaller groups of players to be able to qualify for their events. You can find them at http://fistf.com/

WASPA- World Amateur Subbuteo Players Association. This group is relatively new to the Subbuteo world and runs off the premise that no matter the size of your club or national association every should be able to be under one international umbrella. The big advantage to WASPA is that smaller nations such as Canada have the ability to participate in an international ranking system without having to fly all over the country to do so. The downside would be that it is a new group that is trying to get themselves set up for the future, and as such has a smaller player base but it is growing. You can find them at http://waspa-circuit.blogspot.ca/

So that’s your crash course on what all these acronyms mean. For a newer player don’t panic about the big international groups to start with. Find your national group and have them help get you in contact with players in your area! Next time up I hope to take a look at the ranges of equipment found and how to get the most out of that set you either just purchased or found in the attic.

Shane Hoopfer Secretary CSTFA

@shanehoopfer on twitter

www.subbuteo.com is online

Our friends from SUBBUTEO have officially launched their website at http://en.subbuteo.com/

There are tips for new players, a list of available products and even the list of retailers. The game is currently available in Portugal, the UK, Spain, Italy, Singapore and Australia. Many more nations should have distributors soon.

Hopefully this will help to get a lot of new players interested in the beautiful game.

A big change for the WASPA circuit

There were a lot of comments in the last few days about the possible change to have WASPA tournaments with only three players instead of four. A mail has been sent to several tournaments organizers and players and, apart from two people who didn't really know if a change like this would be a good thing, everyone gave support. The idea is not to lower the standards of organisation but just to help smaller associations and isolated groups of players. In countries such as Australia, Canada or the US, it's difficult to get players together for a tournament because of the long distances between cities. Also, in the last few months some tournaments were held with only three players. Despite of the efforts made by the local organizers to have something great, the tournaments could not count for the WASPA ranking and archives. Hopefully the change will motivate more clubs and players to organize tournaments under WASPA banner. The idea is to have more nations involved in the near future. The decision is therefore taken with immediate effect.

For more details about the WASPA circuit, take a look at http://waspa-circuit.blogspot.com/ 

Subbuteo is available again in the UK

Today is the official launch day for the new subbuteo range at the famous store Hamleys in London. The official launch of the iconic sports game takes place at 10.30 on the 5th floor with four top England under 12 table football players demonstrating the beautiful game!

Subbuteo is also available now in UK stores nationwide including Toys R Us, John Lewis (Oxford Street in London), selected Waterstones and Toymaster branches...

CSTFA website up and running again

After a few months, Shane Hooper managed to clean up the CSTFA website and hopefully it will help to reboost the activity of the game in Canada. For more about subbuteo table football, check http://cstfa.webs.com/

Semi-final for David Baxter

"Our" David Baxter is back in Scotland. David took part in the International Open of Arbroath last sunday and reached the semi-finals. He lost the Steve Bennett (1-2). In the final, Bennett beat Mike Burns (2-1).

The canadian forum is still running

Have a look at http://cstfa.webs.com/apps/forums/ for great discussions about the beautiful game in Canada!