A Short History of Cross Country Table Tennis

 

A little known fact is that although the invigorating game of Cross-Country Table Tennis was invented in the United States it was Not Americans but rather a group of Canadian campers that played the first official games !.

 

The Big Red Barn as it looked in June 2004

 The framework for the game was worked out during a rather uneventful game of  4-man Ping-Pong. Not content to merely wait on ones own side for the ball to arrive it was decided that after hitting the ball to your opponent you should then join him on the other side and he should do the same after receiving your volley. 

 Early attempts of  "everyone go Clockwise !"  and  "ok then... the OTHER Clockwise" proved futile, giving way to the now standard "Random-Erratic" movement of today's game.

Did you know that the now famous slogan " Shut that damn music off ! " was actually created during those early matches !

Due to some rather un-fortunate incidents this motley crew of 4 stumbled upon and perfected some of the high-impact & crowd-pleasing moves for what we all know today to be the exciting sport of "Full Contact Cross-Country Table Tennis" !

 

The Founders : Dan "The Man", "Patch", Rich "get-ota-my-way", Steve "The Wall"

 

While there are no known photos of the first matches played back in June 2004 the memories of those early days are are etched in our memories and in the floors of the now famous Big Red Barn.

-Patch

 

Camping2004