It’s been a long 25 years for Bonnie Zufelt at Partners Billiards & Bowling, but it was impossible not to see the payoff of the work she’s done building the Partners Pool Leagues over the last quarter century. Players far and wide gathered to recognize the strides made to grow the Leagues this past weekend.
“Twenty-five years ago I had this crazy notion of running pool leagues in North Bay,” Zufelt said. “I started going out and knocking on established places in North Bay that had pool tables set up and the rest is history.”
Partnering with the Valley National 8-Ball Association long ago, over 2,500 players have passed through their leagues.
She said it took up surprisingly fast with over 130 members by the end of the first year, and then over 250 by the end of the second year, quickly swelling to over 850 by the early 2,000s, encompassing North Bay, Sturgeon Falls, Verner, and Mattawa.
“The first couple years were smaller divisions, but now we’ve grown to the point where we divide people based on their ability, which is really nice,” Zufelt said. “We’ve had a junior league running for a while and a lot of the juniors have moved to our adult league, so now parents are playing with their children.”
But with humble beginnings, Zufelt has seen over 2,500 players come through their leagues, from North Bay and surrounding areas. Young and old, hundreds of past and present players came to recollect past memories, rekindle relationships with past friends, and foster new experiences for the recent players.
However, not all initiatives are without challenges, and while Zufelt said it was quite a pleasant experience, it was more about changing the classical image of pool to welcome different demographics into their leagues—something that they’ve succeeded in doing quite quickly.
“The players in the early stages were people who had traditionally played pool at bars,” she said. “So we wanted to change the whole image of pool. If you go back in the day it was mostly snooker and not a lot of women were frequenting. Changing that image was the biggest hurdle we had. Then all of the sudden business people and women started coming out, for example.”
But it has been an enriching experience growing the community, building relationships, and taking pride in the success of players as they go off to represent the area provincially and nationally.
“I’m so glad to see these people out tonight,” she said, looking about the room filled with people chatting, playing pool, sharing food and drink, and reveling in some of the prizes given away that night. “They are like family to me. Did I think 25 years ago that this is where I was going to be today? Absolutely not and this is going to continue on after I’m gone.”
