Friday, December 08, 2006

BC home of the board games yes, board (not bored games)

There seems to have been a bit of spare time on the hands of some of the media folks in British Columbia this summer and fall. This Christmas season, there are two board game offerings out on the market, the creation of those that talk on the radio or show up on the television from time to time.

In the era of the computer game or variety of game platforms like Xbox, Play station and such, it’s kind of a throwback to the days of sitting around the kitchen table and making your own entertainment.

Dan Russell who hosts Sport talk on CKNW every weekday night from 9 to midnight, has put together a trivia game based on the history of the Vancouver Canucks. If you’ve got the answer to ancient questions about yellow skates and ugly uniforms of the past you might enjoy Dan Russell’s hockey trivia game. Russell’s game is listed as exclusive to Blenz coffee shops, a chain of coffee emporiums mostly in Greater Vancouver, Victoria and scattered locales in the Okanagan.

Russell finds himself battling for shelf space in your games room with Ian Hanomansing, who when he’s not working on news stories for the CBC in Vancouver apparently is busy in the basement putting together the pieces for Big League Hockey Manager. Hanomansing and his co-developer Gregory Baker have been busy knocking on doors and creating awareness of their project that officially arrived in stores in October. Big League Manager was in the back of the mind of Hanomansing as long as thirty years ago as he grew up in Sackville, Nova Scotia.

There is a rather extensive description of the process from thought to game on sale provided here, but we hope that there’s a bit more excitement involved than the accompanying photo shows.

It does look interesting for the hockey fan though, as it allows up to six players to take on the role of General Manager and run their very own franchise. We suggest that only the player who has bought the Russell game be allowed to take on the role of Dave Nonis, since only someone who can truly appreciate the era of the downward skate or Halloween like colours of past Canuck logos and uniforms should be allowed to run the board for the Canucks.

We’ll leave it up to you to decide who among your friends gets to be Mike Milbury or Bobby Clarke.

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