Jeremy Tracey, of the crokinole board manufacturing company Tracey Boards, stands in front of the 10-foot-tall World's Largest Crokinole Board.

When the World Crokinole organizing committee started planning their 25th championship, they were looking to showcase something big. And they found it.

Jeremy Tracey, a member of the organizing committee, and owner of the crokinole board manufacturing company Tracey Boards, hatched the plan to build the biggest crokinole board in the world. And now the 10-foot tall board will be unveiled to the public for the first time at the Tavistock Arena for the 25th World Crokinole Championship.

“The hardest part was the weight” said Tracey. An official WCC board is 31.5 inches in diameter and weighs 20 pounds. Expanding to 10 feet in perfect scale would have made the board weigh 300 pounds. “Despite our best efforts to lighten it, it is coming in at 285 pounds,” says Tracey, who hatched the idea about a year ago. Fortunately the board, which will be the centre-piece of the 25th World Crokinole Championship showcase, won’t have to move around much once it’s setup for display.

Everything from the gutter, to the pegs, to the centre hole, to the discs, and even to the WCC logo on the edge of the board, has been scaled to the new 10-foot size perfectly. “When we’ve shared photos of the board we always have to make someone stand in the photo, otherwise the board looks just like any other if we don’t put something in the photo to show the proper scale.”

Showcasing a massive WCC board at the 25th edition of the tournament is a fitting callback to a historic moment in the event’s history. The World Crokinole Championships first created their official board and unveiled it at the 5th Championship in 2003, and the board became the international standard competition board used by the large majority of board manufacturers today. Jeremy Tracey, uses the very same specifications for all of the boards manufactured by Tracey Boards.

Tracey Boards became the official board builder for the World Crokinole Championships in 2019. Prior to that, Willard Martin of Elmira built the WCC boards for many years, after the initial slate of boards in 2003 were produced by Creative Wood Products of London. “It certainly doesn’t hurt the business’ reputation to be the official World Championship builder,” Tracey joked.

Some other questions came up along the way when trying to put this 10-foot board together. How can the pegs on the board provide enough bounce for the discs? Should the enlarged discs be made of solid wood, or with a hollow middle? How can a board this big be transported? All questions the Tracey Boards staff had to find answers to.

The most crucial question for the World Crokinole organizing committee was: will it even fit in the door? Thankfully the Zamboni entrance of the Tavistock Arena is big enough, as most other doorways do not provide enough space.

The giant board will be on display at the tournament, and all are welcome and encouraged to come by and get their picture taken with it. Surrounding the board will be other crokinole items of historic importance, including antique boards dating back to the 1800s, and a year-by-year history of the World Crokinole Championship going back to 1999.

Spectators are welcome for free to come and check out the big board and the history exhibits at either the Friday Night Social (June 5th) or on tournament day Saturday (June 6th) at the Tavistock Arena.

In addition to being a crokinole board builder, Jeremy Tracey is one of the top competitive crokinole players, having won the doubles championship with his partner, Andrew Hutchinson, last year. While building the biggest board has been fun, the competition at the tournament is equally as fun for him, “It was thrill to play well and win the title last year. There’s a lot of good crokinole teams competing, so I’m really hoping Andrew and I can defend our crown."

What will happen to the world’s biggest crokinole board after the tournament? “The board will go back to the Tracey Boards shop in Elmira and sit on our wall. It should make for a good display for anyone stopping by to see.”