It was a happy coincidence.

Two of the eight male shuffleboard players selected to represent Alberta in the 5th Annual Inter-Provincial of the Canadian National Shuffleboard Association (CNSA) hail from Cochrane and prior to the qualifer they had never met.

Walter Chadwick and Douglas Campbell participated in the qualifer, hosted by Innisfail on May 9, and are now members of one of two men's teams representing the province in one of the largest shuffleboard events in Canada.

For Chadwick, a big part of the the enjoyment of the sport is making new friends. He and his wife are Snowbirders and travel annually to Yuma to escape our cold winters. Part of the enjoyment of those visits is playing shuffleboards and they normally participate in 10-15 tournaments each year.

"When I first shuffled in Yuma I started going to tournaments outside the park and all of a sudden I had 500 new friends," says Chadwick. "I knew their faces, I didn't know their names, but they were all friends."

Chadwick said it's something you play for the fun of it.

"Shuffleboard is pretty straight forward. You go there and have fun. You get to know the fellow beside you and just hope your shots are a little bit better than his. You always have the good shots and the bad shots, same as golf, so you keep coming back for the good shots."

Shuffleboard is played in Cochrane and it was even a demonstration event  held in conjunction with the Cochrane Friendly Games a few years ago. Campbell, who is active in Alberta Plus 55 sports,  believes Cochrane is a good location to foster the sport. It's located about halfway between hot beds in High River and Innisfail.

"We hope to build the interest so we can have regular games here."

The better quality sheets cost about $1,500 a piece and currently Zone 2 of Alberta 55 Plus shares a few sheets between several communities.

"If we could build up a critical mass of players we can bring them here."

The Inter-Provincials are being held in Moose Jaw, SK, July 10-14 and heir teammates are Dennis Stockman, of St. Albert, and Howard Dugan, of Red Deer. There are also two women's teams representing Alberta.