Naomi Williams, John Morra, Alex Pagulayan and Brittany Bryant
From May 5th to May 10th, le Tapis Vert in Quebec City hosted the Canadian Billiards & Snooker Association’s (CBSA) 21st annual Canadian Pool Championships. The six-day event consisted of 8-ball, 9-ball and 10-ball tournaments open to any person holding a Canadian passport. The CBSA is affiliated with the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), through the WPA’s North American affiliate, the Billiard Congress of America (BCA). With these affiliations, it grants Canada the opportunity to be represented at all World Pool Championships, and most other major International pool events.
The restructured CBSA Board of Directors made a wise decision this year in selecting Quebec as the host province for 2016. The Province of Quebec has a great attitude towards billiards, they produce a great number of top calibre players, and there was a significant increase the attendance from previous years.
Women’s Events
Naomi Williams and Brittany Bryant continue to dominate this sport in the Women’s Canadian field. Year after year, these ladies share titles and this year was no different. Brittany and Naomi played each other in the finals of both events (9-Ball and 10-Ball). After losing to Brittany in the A-side finals, Naomi returned from the B-side to win her forth Canadian 9-Ball title with an 11-6 win.
In the 10-Ball event, it was Brittany’s turn to shine. Both players traded racks for the first 8 games and the score was tied 4-4. All of a sudden, Brittany took control and went into dead stroke winning the next 6 games in a row to take the 10-Ball title. Well done girls.
Open 8-Ball
Earlier in the year the organizing committee for the 2016 World 8-Ball Tournament announced that the event would be held in Toronto at The Corner Bank. It was disappointing to recently learn that the event was moved from Toronto to China. A large number of players had high hopes of competing at the international level in front of their fellow countryman. In any event, the show must go on.
In the Canadian event, the crowd favourite, Alex Pagulayan looked unstoppable only losing 6 games in his first 4 matches. Alex outscored his opponents 36-6. Alex’s then faced 3-time Canadian 8-Ball Champion Jason Klatt. Klatt was also having a good day with wins over Jason Thomas, Alain Martel, Sylvain Gingras and John Morra. A very focussed Klatt got the 9-5 win over Alex in their 5th round match.
In the finals, Jason faced Alex Pagulayan for the second time. Both players traded racks in the alternate break format and the score remained close until the end. With the score tied 10-10, Jason broke and ran the final rack to take the match and the title. An impressive start for Klatt as he went undefeated to claim his fourth Canadian 8-ball title.
Open 9-Ball
A few weeks before this event, it was announced that the 9-Ball would be racked on the spot. This rule was implemented to follow the lead of the World Pool-Billiard Association which will be enforced at the World Championships. All participants needed to adapt to this break format on short notice.
Although Alex fell one game short in the 8-ball event, “The Lion” reigned in the 9-ball. Three days into this event, Alex was well adjusted to the conditions of the room. Alex dominated his opponents and reached the finals with wins over Jeff Blais, Danny Hewitt, John Morra, Sylvain Grenier and Alain Martel. It was John Morra who had the last opportunity to dethrone Alex. John has been travelling the planet and is currently ranked 5th in the world rankings. Unfortunately for John, the break shot was not cooperating with him and he had very few opportunities to gain any momentum. Pagulayan stayed in control the entire match and won the 9-ball title with a solid 15-6 performance.
Open 10-Ball
In this event, “The Dancing Bear” Alain Martel proved he still has what it takes to compete with the best players in the country. His gentle, finesse style put him in the A-bracket semi-finals with wins over Randy Bagot, Charles Castonguay, Shannon Ducharme and Stephan Doiron. Alain continued his clinic against Alex Pagulayan and mounted a 6-2 lead. Unfortunately for Alain, no lead is safe against Alex. Pagulayan somehow managed to comeback and win 10-9. Martel was eventually eliminated by John Morra and settled for a respectable 4th place finish.
The final match would see John Morra face off against Alex Pagulayan. This was a rematch of the 9-ball finals and John wanted revenge. Morra got off to a great start winning the first 4 games. In the 5th rack, John committed an early foul and Alex pounced at the opportunity to get on the scoreboard 4-1. John scratched on the next break in this alternate break format and Alex ran out again to bring the score to 4-2. From there, the smooth stroke of John Morra took over. John kept the pressure on Alex as he won 9 of the next 10 racks to clinch the title with a dominating 13-3 score. A fabulous finish to a great tournament.
“The CBSA very much needed a bounce-back year, and the numbers were big enough to say that this event should help pave the way for better things in the future”, said Randall Morrison President, Canadian Billiards & Snooker Association. Check out their website for full brackets from the event – http://www.cbsa.ca
A special thanks to all the special people that made this event happen. The CBSA Secretary, Candace Campbell, did an excellent job as tournament director and had a great time doing it. Volunteers Barry Hetherington and Alain Parent were gracious to offer their assistance in helping conduct the bracket, calling matches and officiating shots. Acknowledgement should also be given to the sponsors for contributing to the costs associate with running these national events: Tiger, Simonis/Aramith, Kamui, Chalk-Cube, F.G. Bradley’s, Think Green Industries and Jostens.
Danny Hewitt, Luc Pacquette and Alain Parent photo by Markus Noé
This past weekend Terminus Billiards & Bar located in Gatineau, Quebec hosted the third stop of the newly formed Falcon Cues Québec Pro Tour. This tour has been received with open arms by not only Québec players but from the entire Canadian pool community as this is currently the only professional tour in the country.
The first two stops have been played in Rimouski and Jonquiere, Québec averaging 32 players. Last weekend saw 47 players show up to participate. I credit this increase in the field size due to several factors. Gatineau borders Ottawa, Ontario and is only a few hours away from Montreal, Québec while the last two tournaments have been several hours away from Montreal which is home to hundreds of players. Also the announcement that the 8th ranked player in the world, John Morra along with his father and solid professional Mario Morra added some extra buzz.
Day 1 featured a few shocking results and a couple big matches early on. Winner of the last stop Danny Hewitt paired up with Luc "The Machine Gun" Salvas in the first round. Salvas a multiple World Speed Pool Champion, is always a crowd favorite as his speed and obvious love of the game makes him very entertaining. However he was in tough against the current #1 player in Québec Hewitt and lost his first match 9-6. Despite this early loss Salvas went on to win 7 matches before losing to Alain Martel in the 4th place match.
The biggest upset of the day was Sylvain Grenier who has had a solid year in his return to pool, failing to make it to Sunday. He suffered a 9-6 loss to Dany Nguyen a young professional from Montreal. On the losers side he won one match before being eliminated by strong local semi-pro Sébastien Cousineau 9-5. Another upset of note is Karl Petrin a newly ranked "A" player from Montreal beating Lelsie Cookie a "AAA" 9-8.
Overall as in most cases in talent packed tournaments such as this the creme floated to the top. Going into Day 2 the final eight were John Morra vs Andre Goyette, Danny Hewitt vs Yannick Bedard, Alain Martel vs Sébastien Cousineau, Luc Salvas vs Patrick De Repentigny. A feel good story going into the final was the success a few local players had been having. There was of course Cousineau who was mentioned earlier. However not to be undone is Canadian legend Andre Goyette at 75yrs who old fought right till the final 4 winners side. House pro at Terminus Repentigny also had a great deal of success only losing to Goyette and Salvas finishing tied for 8th with Cousineau.
The pool hall really became electric when there were 4 remaining. On one table there was Martel vs Salvas while Morra and Hewitt did battle on the next table. Morra defeated Hewitt 9-7 and waited in the hot-seat while Martel and Hewitt went to war to decided who would get the last shot at the tournament favorite. Martel looked a bit fatigued and perhaps was distracted by a waitress who came to bring me a coffee at aninappropriate time in the match and appeared to inadvertently "Shark" him out of a key shot. In the end Hewitt won easily 9-4 and earned a rematch.
The final began with a flurry from Morra who was breaking well and mounted a 6-1 lead in this extended race to 11. A dry break for Morra and accidentally hooking himself on a wide open was all Hewitt needed to mount a comeback, and in a blink it was 6-6. Hewitt even went on to take the lead 8-6 before Morra had a chance. Hewitt finally missed a shot and even got a good roll to not leave it easy. However Morra a former Derby City 9 Ball Banks Champion, stepped up and fired a full table cross corner on the 5 ball and ran out to get within a game.
In the end Hewitt was just playing too well and Morra a was just a bit unlucky as Hewitt went on to win 11-7. This was a phenomenal tournament all around and perhaps the most entertaining one I have seen in Canada outside the Archer Cup in Thetford Mines, Québec. Once again it was proven that Québec is the current "Mecca" for pool in Canada as it is one of the best places for the Pro's to come to be respected and watched. The local crowd was absolutely thrilled with the talent that was on display in their pool hall. I would also like to commend the amateur level players who came out to participate, because in reality there were only 12 ranked Professionals. The rest were high level Semi-Pro's and Amateurs. This to me is very important as currently in Toronto we see professional's are being left out of many tournaments, while in Québec they use staggered entry fee's and not handicaps to encourage lesser players to improve alongside some of the best in the country.
I would like to thank the Falcon team which consists of Danny Hewitt, Alain Parent and David Deschenes as well as Patrick De Repentigny and the entire Terminus staff. Combined they not only gave me everything I needed to cover this event but embraced me with open arms understanding the importance of promoting the Tour and the Sport of Pool. There will be a quick turn around for the Falcon Tour as the next stop is this weekend November 21-22 in Trois-Riviere, Québec. We will update the tournament early next week as my partner Erik Hjorleifson and myself will be playing in the Eastern Canada Barbox Championships at Tailgators in Ottawa, Ontario. I invite everyone to come and join the Nation on our Facebook page, you can also catch up with all the other videos I took at this event.
On Labor Day weekend, to a growing list of 2015 victories that has included two Turning Stone events (XXIII, XXIV), the Ginky Memorial, two events on the Predator Tour, a Joss Tour win and a challenge match versus Corey Deuel, Jayson Shaw added a win in the Eastern States Championships, held under the auspices of the Predator Tour, the New England 9-Ball series and the Ride the 9 Tour. The $2,000-added Open/Pro event of the championships drew 27 entrants to Snooker's in Providence, RI. A concurrently-run, $1,000-added Amateur championship (separate story) drew 98.
Shaw's journey to the winners' circle took a little left hand turn in the battle for the hot seat against Nelson Oliviera, and he was forced to play a loss-side opponent in the semifinals – Sylvain Grenier – who'd won seven on the loss side to reach those semifinals. He took both circumstances in stride to claim the victory. He'd sent Jorge Rodriguez to the loss side in a winners' side semifinal 8-2, while Oliviera sent Tony Robles over 8-5. Oliviera claimed the hot seat 8-6.
On the loss side, it was Rodriguez who had the misfortune of running into Grenier, who was five wins into his seven-match, loss-side streak, that had included wins over Brent Boemmels 8-2 and Tom D'Alfonso 8-6. Robles picked up Kevin Guimond, who'd gotten by Peter Bowman 8-4 and Rick Sleeper 8-6 to reach him.
Grenier downed Rodriguez and Guimond eliminated Robles, both 8-6. Grenier then defeated Guimond in the quarterfinals 8-5. Then, he ran into Shaw, who was, to put it mildly, anxious to get back into things for a second shot at Oliviera in the hot seat. Shaw gave up a single rack to Grenier in the semifinals, and put an exclamation point on his event victory by giving up only two to Oliviera in their re-match.
Predator Tour Director Tony Robles thanked his fellow TDs from the New England 9-Ball Series (Marc Dionne) and Ride the 9 Tour (Gloria Magnano), as well as Snooker's owners, Stephen and Regina Goulding and sponsors, Predator Cues, Ozone Billiards, and Delta 13 racks.
Day two at the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour's Turning Stone Classic XXIV started with both of day one's big upset victims starting on their long paths to hopeful tournament glory.
Appleton's thoughts about forfeiting because of a pinched nerve in his neck were forgotten and he, as well as Mike Dechaine, won both of their day two matches. Appleton scoring wins over Dale Kimmett and John Babravich, while Dechaine eliminated Tony Antone and Jason Michas. Other surprisingly early residents of the one loss side, Oscar and Ernesto Dominguez, also won their day two matches and remained in the hunt on day three.
Joining these players on the one loss side were such notables as Johnny Archer, Karen Corr, John Morra, Hunter Lombardo, Shane McMinn, Danny Hewitt and Matt Krah. Archer's 9-5 loss on the winner's side was at the hands of Shaun Wilkie, and it looked like Archer would be booking an early flight home late on Friday night as he trailed Paul Rozonewski 5-0. Archer did what he has done his entire career though, and shook off the scoreline to grind his way back into the match. He won eight straight games and won the match 9-6.
Day two was not kind for Mosconi Cup hopefuls as Jeremy Sossei, Scott Frost and Skylar Woodward all dropped winners side matches. Frost clawed back from a 3-0 deficit to tie the score with Jayson Shaw, but was unable to stop Shaw as he won the next six games for the 9-3 win. Woodward lost a heartbreaking 9-8 decision to Canadian Sylvain Grenier, and Sossei lost 9-5 to Canadian Martin Daigle. Mosconi Cup frontrunners Shane Van Boening and Corey Deuel remained unbeaten on day two.
Day three will be tough for everyone, but especially the players who are on the left side of the board. They will be faced with match after match, and very little time to regroup in between these battles.
