TORONTO'S BACKYARD AXE THROWING LEAGUE

G'day to you, eh! Thanks for stopping by. The coffeepot is on and the virtual treats look especially delicious so...help yourself. Y'know, in the Old West it was "Check your weapons at the door". Well, here in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), it's "C'mon in and bring your axe, eh!"

The Backyard Axe Throwing League started the way all great ideas do: alcohol and lethargy. A few guys that got a little too sauced in the woods, and serendipitously invented a sport by throwing axes at trees and then making up a point system and bunch of rules. Four years old now, the league has boasted hundreds of members, astonishingly no injuries, and free kegs every week. Take that, Curling!  

There’s a certain Fight Club element to the league. Currently, it’s only known by word of mouth and remains confined to a punk, nu-metal, hipster crowd that are all in some way, friends of friends.

Founder Matt Wilson said, "It started just throwing hatchets at a tree, at Turkey Point in mid October--it was the end of the cottage season so the place was totally barren. We met a couple of new people, and we all ended up getting split up most of the week, so at the end of the day we’d meet up and throw axes. There might have been substance abuse going on. Then we came back and I told my roommate all about how fun it was and he didn’t get it and there happened to be a pile of wood and I went and bought a four-dollar fibreglass home-hardware axe and a bottle of rye and told him I was going to show him it was fun whether he liked it or not. He and I hung out, drunk afterwards (He obviously means overserved) and he said, 'Yeah this is really satisfying.' I'm one of those guys who likes to make up rules for everything, so it wasn't long before backyard axe flinging became a full-fledged semi-sport."

So what are the rules of the game?
It’s similar to Tennis; you play one-on-one, and you have to win two out of three games to win a match--each game is five axes apiece. The way the scoring works is there’s a bull’s eye which is five points, the middle ring is three points, and the outer ring is one point. So, if I win one round and you win one round, there’s a third round, it’s called a tie breaker. That involves a bigger axe and you throw it from farther away, over your head. It's like a penalty shoot out. As long as it sticks within the full target it counts. There’s one other rule, there’s one little dot in the top left corner worth 7 points called a clutch. 

Of course, if you're walking down the street carrying an axe and the police happen to see you, you might have some explaining to do.

"So, you see, officer..."

Just don't say, "Hey officer, your eyes look a little glazed. Have you been eating doughnuts?" It won't help your cause any.

See ya, eh!

Bob