Croquet at West Point Grey: In 1989 the newly formed Vancouver Croquet Club (VCC) was playing croquet on the rough grass at Jericho Beach across the road from the hostel. They wanted a better quality lawn so they approached the nearby West Point Grey Lawn Bowling Club with an offer to rent one of their lawns. After heated discussion at Board meetings the offer was eventually accepted. This led to the resignation of some club members who opposed the decision, including Ed Angel, the founder of the Ed Angel League, our most popular inter-club bowling league. The two clubs continued this association until in 2017 when they amalgamated to become our current club.
Croquet Games: There are two types of croquet games: 6-wicket and 9-wicket. At our club we play 6-wicket croquet which uses heavier equipment and is played on a larger court than is 9-wicket croquet. Six-wicket croquet games fall into two groups that are quite different in the mallet strokes and strategy skills required to play them. The first group is Golf Croquet (GC) and a variation of it called Snake-in-the-Grass Croquet (SC). The other group is Association Croquet (AC), a variation of AC called Ricochet Croquet (RC) and American Croquet (AR) that requires strokes common to AC but with a quite different set of rules. We rarely play AR here now but it is still a popular game in the Eastern United States. Because of its history, Association Croquet is considered the basic game but Golf Croquet is by far the most popular croquet game worldwide.
What and When we play: Except for AR, we play all of these croquet games at our club but Snake (SC) is by far the most popular. Not only was it created here by Pierre Dunn when he was a member and President of the Vancouver Croquet Club (2006-09), of all the games, we think it requires the best combination of skill and strategy that allows players of different skill levels to play together and have fun.
Compared to bowls, croquet has relatively few players with no leagues and only the occasional tournament. However, we play daily throughout the year and decide what game to play based on the consensus of the group that shows up on the day. Occasionally we set what’s to be played in advance using our on-line booking system. Using this system players can book when they want to play, see who’s booked and see the games to be played in advance. The current booking sheet is displayed below.
Croquet Guests: Members are allowed to have one daily guest and any one person can be a guest a maximum of three times per year. There is a small guest fee and the guest information should be entered in the Club’s Guest Book located in the clubhouse.