North Kenwood Has a Shot at the Mae Hall Trophy. What Does It Take to Get There?

The first Neighborhood Shuffle Showdown, in September 2018, drew eight St. Petersburg neighborhoods to the courts on Mirror Lake Drive. Historic Uptown took home the Mae Hall Trophy with a four-person team. The third Showdown is a week from Sunday, and the Council of Neighborhood Associations' event page lists 36 neighborhoods. North Kenwood is one of them, along with Historic Kenwood next door, Central Oak Park, Crescent Lake and Historic Old Northeast.

The event runs Sunday, Nov. 8, from 3 to 8 p.m. at the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club, 559 Mirror Lake Drive North. The format has two halves. In the first, open play takes as many North Kenwood neighbors as come. In the second, two of them carry the whole neighborhood. Winning takes a crowd for the afternoon and two practiced players for the evening, and the next ten days include several cheap ways to find those two.

The name on the trophy belongs to a serious player

Mae Hall went into the Florida Shuffleboard Association's Hall of Fame in 1963 as a player. In a 1990 feature on St. Petersburg's shuffleboard culture, the Los Angeles Times said she was then in her 90s and described her this way:

"heralded as 'the greatest shuffler in the history of the sport.'"

The same article calls St. Petersburg "the shuffleboard capital of America." Today the club's membership page bills it as the world's largest shuffleboard club. So the trophy honors someone who played to win, and the event has grown well past the eight neighborhoods that Historic Uptown's association wrote up in 2018. Crescent Heights and Crescent Lake organized that first one, and the mayor opened it.

With 36 neighborhoods in the field, North Kenwood needs a plan.

Open play has room for everyone

CONA says plainly that this is not a tournament where each neighborhood sends one team. A neighborhood can bring as many residents as it likes, and during open play it can have several two-person teams on different courts at once. Nobody has to sign up as a pair ahead of time. You can bring a partner, pair up with a neighbor after you check in, or switch partners between games. No experience is needed either, and volunteers will be on hand to explain the rules.

Here is how the afternoon runs:

1. 2:30 p.m. Neighborhood check-in opens, and captains pick an identifying color and set up their tables.
2. 3:00 p.m. The event begins. At check-in, players get colored beads or another marker showing which neighborhood they represent.
3. 3:15 p.m. Welcome remarks and a ceremonial first shot.
4. 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Open play, with eight-frame doubles matches. Players can join more than one game.
5. 5:45 p.m. Scores are finalized and the four qualifying neighborhoods are announced.

Open play lasts two hours. A neighborhood with ten pairs on the courts gets through far more eight-frame games in that time than one with a single pair. Each neighborhood's captain is usually the association president or another representative, and part of the job is making sure game cards get filled out and turned in. Results come from those cards, so a full North Kenwood table with neighbors cycling through the courts makes a real difference.

You don't have to play to help. CONA lists cheering, volunteering, staffing the neighborhood table, and simply coming to socialize as ways to take part. The club's own listing adds food trucks, plus neighborhoods tabling and flying their flags.

The last two hours come down to two players

Once the Final Four is named, the format gets small fast. One of the captain's listed duties is to "select two Final Four players if the neighborhood advances." The semifinals and championship start at 6 p.m., the Mae Hall Trophy is presented at 7:45, and the event ends at 8.

So the crowd gets North Kenwood to the semifinals, and after that the result rests on one pair. A neighborhood that reaches 5:45 with two people who have already played a few games on these courts goes into the evening better prepared than one picking two names from the crowd on the spot.

The Saturday class description on the club's events calendar gives a sense of the game's depth. It asks whether you know what "hammer math" is, what "kitchen bait" is, and which disc to bump into another. Beginners can learn all of that. It's just easier to learn before the trophy is on the line.

Ten days of chances to practice

The St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club lists four sets of public hours on its website: Tuesday and Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m., Friday from 7 to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 9 a.m. to noon. Between this Thursday and Showdown Sunday, these are the dates that stand out:

• Shuffleween, Friday, Oct. 30, 7 to 10 p.m. It's the regular Friday night with DJ Teenage Frankenstein, costume prizes and a food truck. Nonmembers pay $10, kids play free, and the club says well-behaved dogs are welcome.
• Friday Night Shuffle, Nov. 6, 7 to 10 p.m. St. Pete Shuffle has run on Friday nights since 2005. It's first come, first served, weather permitting, and volunteers and staff help newcomers get set up on a court and learn to play. Groups are limited to two courts and eight people, and the club will schedule a time for bigger groups.
• Beginner Boot Camp, Saturday, Nov. 7, 10 a.m. It covers scoring, etiquette, rules, tips and basic strategy, the morning before the Showdown. Nonmembers pay $10.
• Advanced Strategy Class, Saturday, Nov. 7, 10 a.m. This is the hammer-math class, running at the same time as Boot Camp, also $10 for nonmembers. It's a good fit for anyone who might be one of North Kenwood's Final Four pair.

CONA also has a limited supply of free Shuffle Bucks that neighborhood associations can request for a practice outing at the club before the Showdown. Requests go to [email protected]. CONA suggests associations pick a team nickname, matching colors, homemade signs or a cheer.

If a couple of practice sessions turn into a habit, membership may be cheaper than paying each time. The club currently lists $75 plus tax for an individual, $125 plus tax for a family, and a $50-plus-tax supporter level that also covers open-hours play without the nonmember fee. At $10 a visit for nonmembers, the individual membership pays for itself after about eight Friday nights.

The courts stay busy after the trophy is handed out

November is a busy month at the club. These dates fall on either side of the Showdown:

• Wine Tasting Fundraiser, Thursday, Nov. 5, 6 to 9 p.m. A walk-around tasting with five themed stations. Tickets are $85 general admission, $75 for members and $40 for designated drivers, and the club says all ticket money supports the club and its community programming.
• Family Game Night with Great Explorations, Friday, Nov. 13, 7 to 10 p.m. It's free for members of either organization, as part of a November reciprocal partnership. Club members also get free admission to Great Explorations all month.
• 100 Discs Art Show, Saturday, Nov. 21, 5 p.m. St. Pete artists paint 100 shuffleboard discs into six-inch pieces of art. Each one is for sale, with proceeds going to the club's Historic Preservation Fund.

Back in the neighborhood, the North Kenwood Neighborhood Association has run neighborhood programs since 1995. Its annual holiday party is Thursday, Dec. 10, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at St Pete Cellars, 1501 22nd Street North. If North Kenwood comes home with the Mae Hall Trophy on Nov. 8, the holiday party will be the first chance to celebrate together.

The Showdown sign-up page is open now. Neighborhood associations register for their neighborhoods, and individual residents just check in under their neighborhood's name on the day.

I'm rooting for North Kenwood's table to be the fullest one on the grounds. If you're helping pull together a pair for the Final Four, or you'd just like to talk about how things are going in your corner of St. Pete, Nanette Counselman would love to hear from you, before or after the trophy is awarded. Let's Connect.