Shuffleboard: Not just for seniors and cruise ships

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A new generation of shufflers wants you to know that shuffleboard is alive and well. The game that traces its roots to 16th century England has been enjoying a quiet resurgence over the past 15 years — a rebirth fueled largely by people in their 20s and 30s.

Ann Engell, who co-chaired last month’s ISA World Shuffleboard Championship Tournament in San Benito’s Fun-N-Sun RV Resort, says one reason shuffleboard is making a comeback is its egalitarian appeal.

“This isn’t your grandma’s shuffleboard game anymore,” Engell said. “A lot of people still think of cruise ships when they think of shuffleboard, but we have people in this tournament from ages 30 to 90 and everywhere in between competing against each other. It’s also a sport that women can compete against men. There’s really no reason we have them split into a men’s division and a ladies’ division other than it’s tradition.”

Among those competing at the tournament was 2023 ISA World Champion Mike Hirsch of Lakeside, Ohio. He’s among the nation’s new breed of young shufflers, but his love of the game started long before most others of his age.

“I’m 32, and I’ve been playing for 25 years or so,” Hirsch said. “We have youth tournaments in Lakeside so we start young, and I just stuck with it. I already feel like the kids in Chicago are starting to play better than me.”

Shuffleboard in the United States traces its roots to the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club, which was founded in 1924 with an initial roster of 426 members. The club reached a peak of 5,000 members in 1944. Efforts to develop the game as a professional sport had limited success, and by the 1960s club participation had dropped to only 35 members.

The International Shuffleboard Association was founded in 1979, also in St. Petersburg, with the mission of making shuffleboard more popular in countries outside the North American continent. It held its first world championship tournament in 1981 with players from only three countries, but today it draws shufflers from the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Norway, Russia, and Netherlands.

Membership in the 100-year-old St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club today is approximately 2,600.

“A big part of what we do — it’s trying to get younger generations interested in sport,” said St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club Executive Director Christine Page. “And we’re not the only ones. The Royal Palms Shuffleboard Clubs in Brooklyn and Chicago are really nurturing younger players. There are several other clubs that are not totally dedicated to shuffleboard, but they have installed one or two courts in their venues. So shuffleboard is really catching on.”

Meanwhile, interest in the game remains strong among Winter Texans despite the growing interest in other games like pickleball.

“I can’t really say the rise in pickleball has decreased shuffleboard participation very much,” said RGV Shuffleboard Association President Eric Polzin. “Participation is not where it was in the 90s, but we’re still having 100 to 200 people in our tournaments which run from November to March.”

An Associated Press survey in 1990 estimated 1,000,000 people were playing shuffleboard in the United States at the time. No recent survey has been conducted, but shufflers we spoke with are optimistic about the future of the sport.

“We’re at the point now where people come to the club and they have been playing their entire life,” Page said. “That’s because their parents brought them and when we first started when we opened it up to the public and we started really started promoting the club. So we’re raising these lifelong players, and that’s very gratifying to see.”

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