Drunk on
beer pong

College craze finds acceptance, legitimacy
and rules among competitive pseudo-athletes

SINK MY BALLS:
Paul Kurylowicz (c) and Team Canada Flush

by ERIK LEIJON

The pub and fraternity house pastime of choice—the accuracy- and dexterity-challenging activity known as beer pong—can be viewed as a legitimate sport even without beer goggles. Coupling the follow-through techniques of basketball, the accuracy of dart throwing and the paraphernalia of its namesake, beer pong has emerged from the house parties and watering holes of America as a professional sport complete with rules and equipment. And if you believe that beer drinking being integral to the sport diminishes its claim as a true test of might, it’s clear you’ve never played a round of golf or ever went bowling or hit a curling sheet.

Earlier this month, nearly 600 pong pros descended upon Las Vegas for the fourth annual World Series of Beer Pong (WSOBP), including three Canadian entrants. Beer pong’s origins date back to 1980s colleges in the Northeastern United States, although the game was originally played with paddles. The current form of the game was known as Beirut (allegedly in reference to the West-East Beirut conflict in Lebanon). The Beirut rules are now what is considered official beer pong. The rules, either the official WSOBP regulations or whatever home-brewed rules one can devise, typically revolve around the same basic tenets. Opponents will stand on opposite sides of a table, each with their own set of cups half-filled with beer. The players then take turns carefully tossing ping-pong balls into their competitors’ cups—if a ball lands in the drink, the recipient of the ball must consume the contents and remove the empty mug. Eliminating your opponents’ cups will result in tasty victory.

More than a simple chugfest

Concordia finance student Chris Gravel, 22, organizes beer pong tournaments in Montreal and is working to bring officially sanctioned WSOBP satellite events in the future. For now, he’s observing the fast rise of beer pong among parched local university students. “It’s still in its infancy here,” Gravel says. “I was introduced to it through my fraternity and after I saw just how big it was getting in the States, I felt it could be just as popular here.”

At his most recent two-on-two tournament held on the second floor of McLean’s Pub on Peel, the atmosphere seemed to be more on par with a tense, competitive event than the usual reckless calamity associated with young college-aged people being loutish on a Saturday night. “If I really wanted to get drunk, I could go to any bar and chug beers with friends,” says participant Philippe Drolet, 22, the only individual at the contest who also participated at the WSOBP in Las Vegas in January. “The main thing I learned about going [to the WSOBP] is, for people who play beer pong, it’s a lot more about the competition than it is about the drinking.”

Drolet, who began playing during his time at the University of British Columbia, marvels over beer pong’s ability to engage and entertain any audience. As he and his teammate Andrew Maydanski mildly wet each ball (for cleanliness and slickness reasons) before softly lobbing them into their opponents’ plastic red receptacles shaped in the official 4-3-2-1 pyramid, other participants and curious attendees follow each glistening airborne sphere in silent awe. Not since the Last Supper has group of young men across an elongated table collectively looked so intense.

Lean and hilariously mean

Although the games get heated, and smack talk of the most hilariously crude variety is both accepted and intrinsic to the spirit of competition, contests are largely self-policed as to reflect the uncomplicated nature of even the officially regulated events. “There are always issues surrounding leaning over the table when shooting,” explains Gravel, “so the [WSOBP] extended the table length and made it legal to lean forwards.” The official rules also prohibit any other kind of cup formation beyond the pyramid set-up. Adds Gravel, “The official rules may not be as crazy or exciting as home rules, but it’s still fun and everyone is making fun of each other’s mothers.”

As beer pong fights for respect amid the congested fringe sports market, pong aficionados are keen to downplay the inextricable link between the sport and drinking. At this particular event, beer pong players are consuming less than a glass of beer per match, and a few are even placing their half-filled cups on the sides of the table instead of downing them outright. “It’s really more of a sport than a game,” says Team Clean Flush member Paul Kurylowicz, 23. “Most people who play beer pong regularly play other sports.”

Some players do find their play can improve after a few cups. “When I play, I’m not as good when I’m sober as when I’m kind of tipsy,” says Gravel. “I get into a kind of groove.”