Historic of the « Québec Open » tournament

Every young canadian received a table hockey game at Christmas in his youth. It was a tradition to offer this game for kids, miniaturized symbol of our national sport (pastime), ice hockey. Me, I received my first game at the age of 7 years old. Most people have played at Christmas with their family after receiving the gift, and have put it away in the basement afterwards. Some people have taken it out every year, during the holidays, to play among family, mostly with their dad and brothers, or to play among friends. It’s our case, a bunch of guys from Charlesbourg, that played for hours and hours, by organizing a multitude of small tournaments between friends in the basement of our parents.


It’s my good friend Richard Coulombe (¨Dick¨) and me (Burt Brassard) that have started a tradition at New Year’s, thus an annual classic that Dick baptized the “Omnium Charlesbourg”. At the beginning in 1994, there were only 6 participants, and this year at the 13th edition in March 2006, we had doubled the number of participants (12). But the goal of this event is not to increase in number, but more to rekindle friendships with old friends from our youth in Charlesbourg, in the holiday season , to have fun and play tabletop hockey. Other than me, there was Richard, Alain Lachance, Stéphane Leclerc, Marc & Stéphane Paquet, Gaétan Villeneuve, Eric Gagnon, Marcel Auclair in the first years.


Furthermore, by chance at the end of the year 1999, Dick discovered on Internet a tabletop hockey tournament in Toronto, the « Johnny Goodguy », that just held their 29th edition! Thus we went to Toronto in April 2000, me & Dick, to measure ourselves to other players, because we had never played against players outside of Quebec City before. And although our high stress level, we figured very well, finishing 1st and 2nd respectively in the preliminary round, with a perfect record of 10 wins in 10 games, on a total of 55 participants. In the playoffs, we both lost to the same player, the eventual champion ¨Vito Brundia¨; Dick lost in the quarter finals and me in the semi-final. The following year in 2001, I returned alone, and this time I won the tournament, by taking my revenge on Vito, in a grueling 3 out of 5 series, in 5 games. But the most important fact about this trip, aside meeting my future friend Mark Sokolski of Toronto, is that the boys from the NTHA league of Brampton, Ont. (Peter Moulton, John Beedham, David Hedley) on top of becoming friends, suggested coming to Quebec City if I ever organized a tournament. It’s there that the idea of an open to the public tournament took shape. And it’s during the return trip from Toronto that we determined the parameters of our new project, and that Dick found the real simple and significant name ¨Québec Open¨, to evoke the city of Québec and the fact that it is open to everybody!


At the spring of 2000, the ¨Royal Hockey League¨ (of my friend, guru and adviser Alain Gagnon) having shut down, I decided to start my own tabletop hockey league in the fall of 2000, thus the UHTQ (Union of Hockey Table of Québec at www.uhtq.ccthf.com). This doing is to perpetuate table hockey in Quebec City, because there wasn’t anymore known league in the town of Québec. To do so, Alain sold me 7 Coleco games (model #5380) to boost my new league, that began in my basement. The third year, after moving up to 9 players, we rented a room at the Community Center Édouard-Lavergne of Quebec City, growth obliging.

To get back to the ¨Québec Open¨ tournament, I organized my first tournament in the spring of 2001. The City of Québec having doubled the rate for the room at the Monseigneur-Bouffard Center one week before the date (May 20th), I had to change venues quickly, and thus the first was held in the basement of the Notre-Dame-De-Pitié church, in the St-Malo parish of Québec. With 17 participants the first year, I increased to 27 the second year. But in 2002, we moved to La Cage Aux Sports of Ancienne-Lorette, following a meeting with the owner, Mr. Charles Lacroix. La Cage Aux Sports is now our major sponsor for the 3rd and 4th edition, and a collaborator from the start, by the intermediary of the manager Marc Pigeon. The third year, we had 38 participants, and the fourth year we had a slight decrease to 32 players, with the nice weather. Now the players come from all over : Montréal, Sherbrooke, Drummondville, Trois-Rivières, Rivière-Du-Loup, Rimouski, Baie St-Paul, Gatineau-Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton and mostly from the greater Quebec City area. We also had the privilege to have the presence in 2002 of Dr Lou Marinoff from New-York, living legend of table hockey in the 1970’s, originally from Montreal; and friend of Ron Chesick, gentleman and ex-president of the ctha (www.ctha.ca). And I would like to thank my good friend Mark Sokolski of Petawawa, Ont., that makes it to all my tournaments since 2002 and that I always meet in the playoffs! I also participate since 4 years now, to his annual tournament in March « Toronto Classic » , on the PowerPlay II board. To resume, we try to promote table hockey in general in Québec and in Ontario, because we are two real aficionados of this great pastime!


The « Québec Open » classic is held annually in the month of May. The tournament as such goes on a weekend day, on a full day and is open to all. There are 3 classes : Expert (¨A¨), Intermediate (¨B¨) and Amateur (¨C¨). There are plaques and medals for the first 3 of every class, with a trophy for the champion (that he keeps for one year, with his name engraved on it). We have many sponsors that offer us generous door prizes. And this happening wouldn’t be possible without the particular handiwork of Denis Giguère, Denis Bégin, André Guay, Guy Gaudreault and Richard Coulombe. In conclusion, we have lots of pleasure on this fun filled day, and we weave links with interesting people from all over!

The tournament is held since the 5th edition at the Édouard-Lavergne Community Center.


Welcome to all players of any age and of all categories, and to spectators also!