Chanticleer Cup 2023

Tl;dr version : We won!!

My second year as a member of the Chanticleer Cup team came to a successful conclusion last weekend as the Auckland squad trounced our evil Wellington rivals over two days of fierce pétanque to bring the trophy home.

I felt quite pleased to make the team this year, and I got a lot of good coaching out of it, particularly from a couple of the more experienced players.

Maybe more importantly, I got to know some of my teammates … who will be rivals at the next tournament we all enter… better through all the time we spent training and traveling down to Palmerston North. Having a closer connection to these pétanque friends makes the whole thing more fun.

One could write a much longer story about all the experiences we had, but, well, not that interesting unless you were there. For instance, it was cold down there on the prairie, so some of us warmed the boules in hot water for an hour or so before going out to play. There was some debate over whether that was clever or a sign of softness. Whatever… it felt nice and we won. There must be a dozen more tidbits like that. And of course recounting the action could take as long as doing it in real life… the drama, the close calls! Ken Burns himself couldn’t hope to capture it all in one of his puny 40-hour films.

But regardless of how much I spare you the details, trust me that it was altogether a fun weekend and something I’d probably do again next year… unless I’ve shifted my focus to an even bigger tournament…