A group of North Bay area pool players are in Vegas this week to compete in the Valley National Eight-Ball Association (VNEA) World Championships.
The local team from Partners Billiards in North Bay is made up of Jeff Tipler, Shane Plante, Dan Fournier, Scott Burbridge, John Larivee and spares Shannon Allhusen and Andrew Allhusen.
Shannon Allhusen will also do some officiating during the major pool event which takes place at the Westgate Casino in Las Vegas.
The event has multiple divisions from men's and women's single 9 ball and 8 ball, Scotch Doubles, three-player events, along with team play.
Jeff Tipler from the Partners Billiards squad says the event will include more than 3,000 international players.
"I’m not sure what the personal expectations are from our Partners Billiards and Bowling contingent, but if they are like me, we are just going to play our hardest and try our best to bring home some hardware to represent our pool hall," said Tipler via email to BayToday.
"I personally have been wanting to play this event for quite a few years and it just wasn’t in the cards but this year I was able to take the core of my league team (Dan, Shane, Jeff) and convince them to go this year."
Tipler says a handful of supporters from North Bay travelled to Vegas to support the team, including Partners Billiards owner Bonnie Zufelt, Kim Tipler, Wendy Plante, Lise Levesque, Sue George, and Anne Marie Parks.
"We added two veterans of this tourney, John and Scott to round out our team. It is an event I’m certain we will always remember and this group has great chemistry and coming here as a group of friends makes it that much better.
"Any time players and or teams can represent your home pool hall at an event like this is huge. Partners is often looked at as a second home by a lot of our players and we like to think of ourselves as one big pool family."
Tipler credits Nil Gaudet at CompuSport team in Las Vegas for their efforts.
"This is software designed in Canada and is used for all our scheduling, scoring and stats keeping," explained Tipler.
"These people are a great group with an absolutely amazing product and fantastic customer support. It is a user-friendly, comprehensive piece of software that can be used for a wide variety of sports organizations."
Those interested in following the progress of the local team can click HERE.
