Chess players battle on the boards
By ALANA TOULIN
Sunday, January 4, 2009
An ordinary conference room in the Prince Arthur Hotel became the site of some very serious and very quiet battles Saturday during the Central Canada Chess League‘s first tournament of 2009.
About twenty players were registered from across all age groups for the “casual” one-day match, which featured half-hour long games (everybody played five) from the morning until late afternoon.
“It‘s an opportunity for the older guys to keep their minds running and for the younger people to do better in school by playing chess,” said chess league member Ed Rohanchuk.
The players concentrated hard on the task at hand – eager to reign supreme. Rohanchuk said the game continues to grow in popularity across Northern Ontario.
While he said it hasn‘t exactly became a craze yet in Thunder Bay, chess‘s popularity seems to have inexplicably exploded in Kapuskasking for example.
“It‘s huge in Kapuskasking. They‘re bringing a Grandmaster from Cuba to keep training their kids.”
Here is the full article.
Where is Kapuskasking?
Well, believe it or not, I was raised in “Kap” as we call it.
If you have a map of Ontario, Canada, find Toronto. Now flip the map over to find the part most people don’t know is there! North of Toronto is Barrie. Keep going. Hit North Bay… keep going. Find Timmins, and north of that famous city, right about where Highway 11 starts curving back down towards Thunder Bay is where you’ll find Kapuskasing.
At this time of year, not much else to do but play chess!!
Kapuskasing hosted the Canadian Open chess tournament a couple of years ago – that probably helped popularize the game there.