Once a pitcher, always a pitcher: Esko Karlson is never too old to toss horseshoes.
Just a few months shy of his 89th birthday, Karlson was back on the courts Sunday at the Prince George Horseshoe Club tossing ringers in the two-day Prince George Open club tournament. For nearly 40 years he's been throwing shoes at steel pegs from 40 feet away but this year has moved up to the 30-foot mark usually populated by the men's 65-and-over crowd.
"It's easier on the arm but I didn't improve at all," laughed Karlson, who finished third in the senior men's 30-foot class on Saturday and was second on Sunday.
"We threw some back on the farm in the Peace Country (near Deadwood, Alta.) where we grew up, but not really. They started a baseball team when I was young and they wanted us to play because we were always throwing something. I was the pitcher and what did I know about pitching? The first year, everybody was praising me for being good, but a year later I was out of it. I had no curve ball, just a straight pitch and everybody loved to hit it."
At 88, the challenge of trying to improve his horseshoe pitching keeps Karlson coming back for more. He and his wife Benita both play regularly.
"I'm just trying to do better and trying to beat the next guy," he said.
Karlson was among 14 players in the Prince George Open, which wrapped up Sunday at Carrie Jane Gray Park. The numbers of tournament players have tailed off significantly since the club moved from its former home at Recreation Place to its current 30-court facility in 2005. At that time there were 44 members.
"Let's face it, it's going away," said Vic Vallee, 66, a five-time B.C. men's provincial silver medalist. "It was always kind of a rural thing and with today's demographics, with all the computers and cell phones, nobody is taking the game up.
"Horseshoes is a life skill and it's a difficult thing to learn to be good at it. I grew up playing horseshoes. When the last of the hard-core players go, there will be nobody left."
Helene Boudreau of the Quesnel Horseshoe Pitchers Club says the same problem exists in Quesnel, where league nights draw only about eight players. Dwindling memberships across the country have left the ranks of horseshoe pitchers in short supply.
"The players are getting older, and the younger people don't want to come out and that's what all the clubs are saying," said Boudreau.
"The younger generations just don't want to be bothered, they're too busy with other things."
Although the two clubs are similar in size (about a dozen members each), Quesnel players have use of their facility rent-free. That's not the case in Prince George, where the city jacked up its yearly rental rate from $10.50 in 2014 to $1,000 in 2015. The 1,000 per cent increase came as a result of the city's core review. With only 12 members to share the cost, Ida Boschman predicts it's only a matter of time before the club is forced to fold.
"The city is trying to squeeze us out," said Boschman.
"They want $1,000 every year for rent, plus $50 GST, and now they're going to charge us $15 for every (recreational vehicle) in the parking lot. We can go across Canada and the States and we never had to pay to park overnight."
The club pays its own power bill for its clubhouse and has access to the building from April to October. Club members had unlimited access to the former club headquarters at Recreation Place, built in 1995 as a result of a $70,000 fundraising project, and they used the building in the off-season to host card-playing events and Christmas parties.
About 50 players from B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan are expected for the Western Canada Classic tournament July 4-5 at Carrie Jane Gray Park, and Boschman plans to be there to defend her ladies B event title. Prince George last hosted the tournament in 2005, when close to 100 players turned up.
Boschman and Mike Cunningham were multiple winners at the P.G. Open. Boschman captured the ladies A and senior ladies categories, while Cunningham won the mixed A class and both days of the senior men's 30-foot competition. Other category winners were: Vallee, men's 40-foot; Lorenzo Ferrara (Quesnel), men's D; and Benita Karlson, women's D.
