Ferd Wulkan stands in Montague Common Hall in his hometown of Montague, Mass., as 30 grown men and women (just a couple of women, really)\u00a0gather\u00a0around five long\u00a0wooden tables\u2014their brows furrowed with determination, their gray hair sweaty with exertion\u2014to\u00a0flip\u00a0plastic discs into tiny red cups. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Welcome to the world of competitive tiddlywinks.<\/p>\n
Wulkan, 68, is a world title holder in this quirky\u00a0game popularized as a children\u2019s activity, featuring\u00a0\u201cwinkers\u201d engaging in maneuvers with delightful names like\u00a0squopping, nurdling, and gromping; players use a small disc called a squidger to flip smaller colored discs called winks\u00a0into a red cup known as a pot.<\/p>\n
Wulkan\u2019s\u00a0group has journeyed to this small town 90 miles west of Boston for a \u201cgolden jubilee\u201d celebration: 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the North American Tiddlywinks Association, which Wulkan and his friends helped form\u00a0in 1966 to foster competitive winks gameplay between students at American universities. The NATwA and the English Tiddlywinks Association crown singles and pairs champions each year, who occasionally meet for the world title, when they\u2019re able to pay for a trip across the Atlantic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us nerds, a game that doesn\u2019t require you to run fast, but does need physical dexterity and strategy is incredibly appealing,\u201d said Wulkun, who with partner Patrick Driscoll is the reigning North American pairs champion. In all, Wulkun is a four-time pairs titlist.<\/p>\n
The world-class winkers game is not child\u2019s play. Tournament winks invokes a level of seriousness and dedication seen among professional athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have people from England and the Grand Cayman Islands here to play, which speaks to the power of the game and how it brings people together,\u201d Wulkan says of the event, which features\u00a0the first gathering of so many master winkers in nearly a decade. \u201cBut, as you can see, it\u2019s a bit of an older crowd. That\u2019s part of the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tiddlywinks is a dying sport, and Wulkan has pinned his hopes on this event inspiring the next generation of winkers. He fears his beloved pastime might become part of the nation\u2019s past. \u201cWe\u2019re losing players every year,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are probably fewer than 100 left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wulkan figured it would take a large public event to draw attention to this unconventional sport. So he\u00a0planned his\u00a0celebration to coincide with Montague\u2019s annual \u201cOld Home Days\u201d festival. With its road race and parade, Wulkan\u00a0knew he\u2019d draw a big crowd of all ages. Wulkan\u00a0arranged for a panel discussion with winking experts, as well as a display to explain the game\u2019s long history\u00a0and a how-to session for beginners. He was sure that if his neighbors saw what fun tiddlywinks could be, they would want to try it themselves.<\/p>\n
Wulkan secured his space in Common Hall and put a sign outside inviting anyone to come in and try out the game. The winkers keep the doors open, and, as passersby hear men shout about\u00a0boondocking,\u00a0a few pop\u00a0their heads inside to witness the commotion for themselves.<\/p>\n
A few\u00a0recognize\u00a0the game from the bottom of their Trix cereal boxes or the Milton Bradley playsets they\u2019d had as kids. Its simple premise and silly jargon have long\u00a0made it a favorite of children.\u00a0But for world-class winkers, this game is definitely not child\u2019s play. Tournament winks invokes a level of seriousness and dedication seen among professional athletes, as well as highly technical rules and stipulations.<\/p>\n
One major distinction between the two types of play is a move called \u201csquopping,\u201d which happens when a player flings his wink on top of his opponent\u2019s wink, effectively putting it out of play.\u00a0There are hundreds of variations of the squop, and dedicated winkers have played into the ridiculous-sounding terminology by naming moves after innovative shots they\u2019ve made themselves, all of which are listed in an extensive winks lexicon.<\/p>\n
In this way, these self-proclaimed nerds have turned the parlor game into\u00a0something all their own, even though it was invented long before they were alive.<\/p>\n
Tiddlywinks dates back to the late 1890s in England, though competitive gameplay didn\u2019t begin until several decades later when college students organized tournaments at England\u2019s Cambridge University in 1955. The sport made its way across the pond when a team from Oxford University took a tour of the United States in 1962. Life<\/em> magazine chronicled these adventures, and childhood friends and then-high schoolers Wulkan and Severin Drix were hooked when they read the article. They decided tiddlywinks would be their sport.<\/p>\n When they reached college in the mid 1960s, Drix and Wulkan recruited players by papering their dorms with flyers at Cornell and MIT\u00a0respectively, holding live demonstrations in the common rooms. They ended up finding dozens of classmates to compete with, and in 1966 helped form the North American Tiddlywinks Association to foster competitive play between universities.<\/p>\n Wulkan hopes\u00a0his old recruiting tactics\u2014the flyers and live demonstrations\u2014will work during the jubilee. But by the beginning of the afternoon, not too many outsiders have\u00a0ventured into the hall to play. While they wait, the world-class winkers compete\u00a0against some of their old college rivals, intent on showing off their skills in what is the biggest gathering of winkers since the last anniversary party 10 years prior in Ithaca, N.Y.<\/p>\n \u201cI do hope we get some newcomers in here,\u201d Wulkan says. \u201cMaybe things will pick up soon.\u201d<\/p>\n After lunch, while the parade was going on outside, Wulkan and some of his old college rivals decide\u00a0to face off in a game at one table. As they play, a few Home Days attendees wander\u00a0into the hall. Among them is Noah Charney and his two-year-old son, Jonah, who walks\u00a0up to a table and grabs a red cup. Another winker shows Jonah how to hold the squidger, and they playfully toss discs into a cup.<\/p>\n Two crucial games are happening within a few feet of each other\u2014one amongst old friends who rarely get the chance to wink against one another, and one amongst new players seeing what the game was all about.<\/p>\n After Wulkan\u2019s game ends, he looks over at the Charneys and some other newcomers who have wandered in. He walks between the tables and shows the newcomers\u00a0how to flip discs, and encourages\u00a0other veteran players to do the same. Soon, the tables are filled with winkers\u2014old and new\u2014playing together and celebrating the game.<\/p>\n As he watches, Wulkan smiles, knowing that one of the greatest lessons tiddlywinks has taught him still holds true: In a blink\u2014a wink\u2014everything can change. All photos by the author.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ferd Wulkan stands in Montague Common Hall in his hometown of Montague, Mass., as 30 grown men and women (just a couple of women, really)\u00a0gather\u00a0around five long\u00a0wooden tables\u2014their brows furrowed with determination, their gray hair sweaty with exertion\u2014to\u00a0flip\u00a0plastic discs into tiny red cups. \u00a0 Welcome to the world of competitive tiddlywinks. Wulkan, 68, is a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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