A Visit With

The Resort Shuffleboarders

By Dale Dauten

My visit to The Resort Shuffleboard courts got me curious — when and where did shuffleboard start? Turns out, no one knows. But we do know this: The game has been around so long that Henry the Eight played. There’s even a record of royal expenditures from 1532 that shows the Privy Purse shelled out 9£ to pay off Henry’s bet, having lost to Lord William in what they called “shovillaborde.” Further, the King cared enough about the game to prohibit commoners from playing.

I don’t doubt the English citizenry wanted to give it a try – after all, there’s something irresistible about the simple elegance of the game. You see people playing and you want to join in. And that’s just what happened to George Kurilla when he first moved into The Resort. He was living just down the way from the shuffleboard courts and after watching the players enjoying themselves, he took a lesson. That was a decade ago and he’s still playing, and he’s now President of the club.

George Kurilla, President of the Shuffleboard Club (and a man with a great hat)

George is from Wisconsin and found The Resort when he and his wife were visiting their son who lives in Mesa. “My wife talked about spending winters in Arizona and we looked around and The Resort fit us well – plenty of good people and plenty to do.”

As for the shuffleboarding, he summarized the appeal of the game this way: “You meet people and you have a little competition, but it’s competition where you shake their hand when they beat you.”

Speaking of competition, I asked George and some of the others I met to point out The Resort’s star players. The question just confused them. Someone eventually suggested that Bob Zignego might be the star, but he just laughed and said, “Maybe I was one day a couple of weeks ago, but not today.” And he added, “Winning and losing are not the priorities.”

The priorities were clear: to enjoy the company of fellow players while embracing the easy rhythm of the game. Even so, to give some zest to the play, everyone keeps score on the chalkboards along the lanes and there are team rankings in the park and The Resort has a team that plays against other parks.

Sometimes star Bob Zignego sends a disk on its way

If you’d like to try it out, you’ll be welcomed. There’s a bulletin board beside the shuffleboard courts and you’ll find this invitation waiting with all the specifics…

STATUS UPDATE ON HDTV/INTERNET

George Igualt, head of The Resort’s management company, was all smiles when we asked him for an update on the HDTV and Internet. “It’s up and it’s stable, and it’s everywhere in both parks,” he told us, adding, “There’s still some work to be done, but it will only make the internet even faster.”

We got additional details from Tim Furlong, the man who’s been leading the work at both parks and who echoed George’s assessment: “We can provide TV and Internet to both parks, park-wide. We still have a lot of work to do, but it’s mostly cosmetic, and now that the systems are stable, we can up the speed.”

Tim asked us to pass along this message: “There are some really good people in the park, ones so nice they don’t want to complain. I worry that there could be some of those people who don’t want to tell us about any problems they’re having. If there’s anyone who needs our help, please let us know – we can get to requests in a day or two.”

He added, “We will have some outages when we bury the green pedestals, but here’s the good news: when we work on a pedestal, every home along that run gets better.