Exploring Western Massachusetts: Sports

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Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Free Croquet Match at The Wicket Grounds in Tolland this Sunday

Croquet matches FREE for all backyard players ages 13 and up at The Wicket Grounds, 1043 Burt Hill Road, Tolland, Ma, Sunday, July 31, from 1 to 5 PM.

"The Bicentennial Cup II" awards three trophy cups to the top three points scorers. Bring a mallet or use one of ours. Cool, leafy, friendly afternoon of croquet in the mountains where it has been played since 1935. Free traditional strawberries and whipped cream!

For more information, contact macroquet@gmail.com or visit www.thewindsoftolland.com.

More about the history of The Wicket Grounds and directions for getting there: http://explorewmass.blogspot.com/2010/07/tolland-bicentennial-cup-croquet.html

Pittsfield Hoopla Festival Returns To Springside Park

(Pittsfield, MA - PRESS RELEASE) On Saturday, July 30, from 10am to 10pm, the Pittsfield City Hoopla festival will return to the public gardens of Springside Park - Pittsfield, Massachusetts’ largest public park, located at 874 North St - for its third year of festivities inspired by the craft, craze and creativity of the hula hoop. Boasting a full day of hoop related classes, contests, jams, art, vending and performance, the Pittsfield City Hoopla is a unique family-friendly event that celebrates the value of the movement arts in our everyday lives and community.

In addition to free hooping workshops for all ages and abilities on the lawn with professional teaching hoop dance artists from the Boston Hoop Troop and Hooping Harmony between 12 noon - 3pm there will also be more focused smaller workshops available for a fee.

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Workshops with Pittsfield based movement professionals include:

10am: Openings: A Yoga Class for Entering the Hoop with Rachael Plaine of Berkshire Pure Movement and Yoga Depot

3pm Intro to HoopTap with festival maker and founder Stefanie Weber

6pm Hip Hop for the Hooper with dancer Marie Georgefils

7pm Sundown Stretch & Flow with Gillian Gorman of Radiance Yoga.

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Workshops from visiting guest artists include:

11am Hoop Tutorial with Robin Rapture of Hoopium in New Hampshire

3pm Putting the Dance in Hoop Dance with Laura-Marie from Hooping Harmony in Greenfield , MA,

4pm On & Off Body Axis Flips & Twists with Lolli Hoops and Core Hooping: Navigating Between Waist and Neck with Rachel, both from the Boston Hoop Troop.

Space is limited for the above workshops and pre-registration is suggested. The cost is $10 per workshop and lower if you attend 3 or more.

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Participants can begin the day by making their own hoop on site at 10am for $25 guided by Hoopla artists. Pre-registration is required and space is limited.

This year’s Hoopla will introduce some new activities for participants. ‘Yogaslacker’ Danielle Gismondi from Frog Lotus Yoga in North Adams will facilitate a slackline throughout the day. According to Slackline.com, slacklining is the sport of walking a small, flat nylon rope between two points. It is practiced in the backyard, on college campuses and city parks, and even 3000 feet above the ground. Some people do it for fun, others for the obvious athletic benefits, and others still for a meditative purpose, in seeking a higher state of mind. Since slacklining’s development in the late 1970s, slacklining has grown into an international craze, and is a common and popular pastime within the outdoor community. Also a part of the circus arts scene, slacklining is making it way back to the stage in more creative ways.

Artist Bridgit Noone will facilitate a table for coloring mandalas. The Mandala Project, founded by Lori Bailey Cunningham, explains a "mandala" as being from the classical Indian language of Sanskrit loosely translated to mean "circle”. “Far more than a simple shape, it represents wholeness, and can be seen as a model for the organizational structure of life itself--a cosmic diagram that reminds us of our relation to the infinite, the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds”, she states. Both Navajo and Tibetan cultures are known for their colorful mandalas.

Returning again this year, David Frazier from the Vincent Hebert Arboretum will be leading walks along the trails at Springside Park for any one interested in learning more about the trees, gardens, and history of the grounds.

At 5pm the Hoopla will offer its first-ever hooping contest featuring prizes from local businesses. Sign-ups for the contests will occur through out the day and are open to all interested.

Food will be available for purchase on site and vendors will be selling handcrafted hoops and other creative items.

The grand finale of Pittsfield City Hoopla begins at 8pm with an “enchanted illuminated spin extravaganza” featuring live drumming by Aimee Gelinas and her Rhythm Keepers from Pittsfield, and fire hoop and dance performances by Lita Lundeen-Setchfield, Angyl Fyre, Maria Mariposa and more.

Pittsfield City Hoopla is created by Stefanie Weber/Creatures of Habitat in partnership with Pittsfield’s Office of Cultural Development and is supported in part through funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Pittsfield Cultural Council and Greylock Federal Credit Union. Additional community supporters and sponsors include Mark Tomasi, Day Mountain Sound, The Earth Shoppe, BerkshireGirl, Elm St. Barber Shop, New Image Salon, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Community Day, Lenox Community Center and Berkshire Dance Theater.

The 3rd annual Pittsfield City Hoopla festival will be held Saturday, July 30th, from 10am to 10pm, rain or shine. For more information visit www.pittsfieldcityhoopla.org. To pre-register for a workshop email Stefanie@fertileuniverse.com or call 413.281.6734.

Pittsfield City Hoopla festival
Free, family friendly, outdoors, rain or shine
Saturday, July 30th, 10am to 10pm
Springside Park
874 North Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201
www.pittsfieldcityhoopla.org
413-281-6734

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Barney Demonstrates Skates at Forest Park

Everett Hosmer Barney (December 7, 1835 - May 31, 1916), Springfield resident and major benefactor of the city's Forest Park is probably best known for his invention of the clamp-on ice skate, for which he received his first patent in 1864.

One of Barney's many other patents, awarded in 1868, was for a perforating machine that could stamp the amount due on a check, or the words "canceled" and "paid."

Here Mr. Barney is seen demonstrating his prowess on his product in a photograph from the 1900 book, A Handbook of Figure Skating Arranged for Use on the Ice, written by George H. Browne, A. M., and published by the Barney and Berry Company in Springfield.

As always, thanks for stopping by and take care.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Tolland Bicentennial Cup Croquet Tournament To Be Held Sunday, August 1st

Wicket Grounds Croquet Club, Tolland, MA

(TOLLAND, MA - Press Release) The final, dramatic act in the observance of the town of Tolland, Massachusetts 200th anniversary, will be played out on the lawns of writer Joseph Clark's ancestral farm for the Bicentennial Cup Croquet Tournament, Sunday, August 1, from noon until 5 PM.

A distinct rarity in such celebrations, croquet continues to be found and enjoyed on most New England farm and rural homes, including those of Clark's family, whose ancestors helped found the town in 1810 and have populated it for most of the time since.

In 1989, Clark rebuilt and "rewicketed" the dedicated lawns and produced and managed more than 100 such matches throughout New England and New York when few people ventured into the Berkshire foothills to play at his own lawns. But, since 9-11, enthusiasm for the sport as a public event also has suffered. So now, free matches and social croquet by invitation has been the main entertainment for Clark, who lives with his wife in a rather reclusive existence much of the time, rattling around the dusty hallways of their rambling farmhouse.

Tolland, Massachusetts, (now mentioned always with the actual state attached) is among the ten smallest towns in the Commonwealth, but steadily growing as the seekers of quiet and smallness eventually are finding the high country roads and grow accustomed to the "16 miles to anything" lifestyle. When July came to Tolland, the long-planned 200th anniversary festivities occupied the town's thoughts. It had rained on the parade, but sun shown on the fishing derby and softball game. Clark's family trust produced the Art Show at the newly repainted church on the green while thunder rumbled in the Catskills, seen by the trained eye far to the west. The Sunday croquet matches follows the ubiquitous fire department steak roast to be held the day before, July 31, on the green, but not many townspeople play croquet.

The event is free to all players and spectators. Players must have experience in any type of croquet, as many rules are in common. The minimum age is 13 and the traditional whites are optional but the shoes are not. No sandals on the lawns, please.

Perfect for both backyard and advanced players alike, the easy play six wicket format is set in a series of half hour games of group play, each man and woman playing one ball as individuals. The players are awarded points in each game and are promoted to more difficult lawns hoping to find themselves on "Center Court" for the grand finale. Cups are awarded to the three top points scorers.

Described as a meld of the "game" and the "sport" of croquet, "individual one ball" is a divination of Clark's writer's mind, imagining a fun day where five hours could be spent on croquet, (normally the "sport" is a two day affair or more) and "still have time to find their way out of town, before it gets dark."

The Wicket Grounds are located off route 57 at 1043 Burt Hill Road, four miles east of New Boston, Massachusetts, and 30 miles west of Springfield. Tolland, Massachusetts is a town of 445, whose telephone is in Sandisfield, its mail from Granville, its schools in Southwick and its identity in ...Connecticut, where the city of Tolland is often confused with...guess who...?

Being 16 miles from Southwick, it is a pleasant and almost hidden trip along "The Toto Trail", the name of Clark's history of Tolland, Massachusetts, through the blueberry lanes of Granville up into the high country just north of the Connecticut line. At night the lights of Winsted, Connecticut, blink toward The Wicket Grounds on Burt Hill...from 16 miles away, of course.

For more information on the Bicentennial Cup Croquet Tournament, visit www.macroquet.com, or contact inkoming@netzero.net or www.macroquet@gmail.com. The Wicket Grounds, 1043 Burt Hill Road, Tolland, Ma 01034.

For the details on the Tolland Volunteer Fire Department’s July 31st Steak Roast and Dance celebrating Tolland’s 200th birthday, check out: http://www.tolland-ma.gov/public_documents/TollandMA_News/02B5590E-000F8513

And here's a link to the official Town of Tolland, Mass. website: http://www.tolland-ma.gov/public_documents/index

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Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Second Annual International Bicycle Club Meet at Hampden Park, Springfield, Mass.

The Springfield Bicycle Club, organized on May 6, 1881, hosted the second annual International Bicycle Meet in the city's Hampden Park over the three days of September 18, 19 and 20, 1883.

Although the meet held the previous September had garnered a respectable interest, drawing a crowd of 12,000 participants and viewers, the second surpassed all attendance figures of the first and, for a time, held the record for highest attendance of such an event nationwide.

Perched along the east bank of the Connecticut River a bit south of the North End bridge, well-groomed Hampden Park was highly-regarded as one of the finest such venues in the country, with a half-mile bicycle track, a one-mile trotting track and a base ball diamond as well as easy access to transportation and city amenities.

The Milton Bradley Company was responsible for the fine lithography of this colorful moment captured in time.

As always, thanks for stopping by and take care.

Image source: Library of Congress; American Memory Collection; http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?pp/ils:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(cph+3a50896))+@field(COLLID+pga))