Watered-down Beer Pong proves a hit
Forum Bar plays host to regular tournaments as game catches on
There is an interesting bar in the Montreal Forum. If you follow the escalators to the top floor — you can watch the breakdancers as you go up — you find yourself in front of the Forum Sports Bar.
Most nights of the week it’s part bar, part arcade. Tinny gunfire and race car engines drift through conversations and flashing screens attract the eye from all directions. But on Thursdays at 7 p.m., a different kind of game dominates the bar: Beer Pong.
This is not the first Beer Pong tournament — in fact, Las Vegas hosts the annual World Series of Beer Pong with a top prize of $65,000. Atlantic City also has an international Beer Pong tournament, where Cody Ryan, the organizer of the Forum Sports Bar’s Beer Pong nights, was named the No. 1 Ponger in Canada, and 114th worldwide.
“This is (a) new era. People aren’t as interested in darts and pool (as they were) in the ’70s and ’80s,” said Ryan.
“Now Beer Pong is taking over, and I plan on taking it everywhere through North America.”
Ryan also organizes Pong Madness, a large-scale competition in Montreal that takes place every few months. But he wanted something more consistent, for diehard players who want to keep their skills sharp for the next big event and to encour- age new players who might be put off by the serious competitors at events like Pong Madness.
“We’re trying to take it out of the basement and more into a competition like darts or bowling,” Ryan said.
It really did come out of his basement. Not long ago, Ryan was hosting the tournaments from his parents’ house, but it became a little too popular for a weekly occurrence. So he found a bar willing to let him host his events for free.
“We host it so that some of our community members could have a place to play,” said Forum Sports Bar manager Lynn Belanger. “They approached us and said they didn’t have a place to do it that wasn’t a basement and wanted to expand. We have the space for it, so we thought we would give them the opportunity here. “Any time we have them in here, it’s good for our business,” she added. “And they’re good guys; so far they’ve been really good.”
Beer Pong works like this: often two against two, but in this case one on one, at either end of a table with 10 cups filled partway with beer. Teams, or singles, take turns throwing two Ping-Pong balls into their opponents’ cups. If a ball lands in a cup and doesn’t bounce out, the opponent has to drink the beer in that cup. The game is notorious among university students for getting you very drunk very quickly.
That’s the main reason Ryan chose not to use beer in his weekly tournaments. Here, cups are filled with water.
For the admission price of $10, “you’re guaranteed a minimum four games,” Ryan said. “So you’re drinking eight beers to yourself in a matter of (about) 20 minutes. You won’t remember anything (and) it gets pricey in a bar.”
According to Ryan, it is still Beer Pong nonetheless. It’s played in a bar and competitors are buying rounds at their leisure throughout the tournament.
Forcing players to drink beer was something he wasn’t comfortable with.
The $10 admission price is spent on equipment (the tables cost $250 each) and prizes. Top prize is $120, second prize is $40 and third prize is free entry into the following week’s competition.
Ryan competes in his own games. If he wins, that’s the only profit he sees from hosting these events.
“Somebody has to do it,” he said.