Alpine Skiing

Alpine Skiing is the sport of sliding down snow‐covered hills on skis with fixed‐heel bindings. It is a timed‐race event. We do two types of races-slalom and giant slalom. Slalom ski races have courses that require short tight turns, whereas giant‐slalom races have courses which are set with more widely spaced turns.

Arts and Crafts

Knitting, Crochet, Cross Stitch, Needlework, Quilting (hand and machine), Scrap booking or Card making, Woodworking (finished or unfinished), Decorative & Native Arts, Mixed Media, Miscellaneous Crafts are the general categories of Arts and Crafts.

Athletics

Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve running, jumping, throwing and walking. Also commonly known as Track and Field. The simplicity of the competitions and the lack of a need for expensive equipment makes Athletics one of the most commonly compete sports in the world. Track events are timed races, while Field events such as throwing and jumping are measured events.

Bocce

Bocce is a ball sport using spherical bowls played with 4 members on a team. Each team throws 4 balls per side, trying to land their team’s colour closest to the pallino (small white ball) in order to score points. It is usually played outdoors on a grass court.

Bowling – 5 Pin

A variation of 10 Pin Bowling, the bowling ball is small enough to fit in the hand and therefore has no finger‐holes. The pins are also 75% the size or regular 10-Pin Bowling pins. In each frame, each player gets three attempts to knock all five pins over. Each pin has a different scoring value depending on where they sit in the V‐formation.

Bridge – Contract

Contract Bridge is a trick taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards. It is played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. The game consists of several deals, each progressing through four phases: dealing the cards, the auction, playing the hand and scoring the results. Dealing the cards and scoring the results are procedural activities while the auction and playing the hand are the two actively competitive phases of the game.

Bridge – Duplicate

Duplicate bridge is the most widely used variation of Contract Bridge in club and tournament play. It is called duplicate because the same bridge deal (i.e. the specific arrangement of the 52 cards into the four hands) is played at each table and scoring is based on relative performance. In this way, every hand, whether strong or weak, is played in competition with others playing the identical cards, and the element of skill is heightened whilst that of chance is reduced. A player normally plays with the same partner throughout an event. The two are known as a “pair”.

Carpet Bowling

Carpet Bowls was devised as a scaled down version of indoor bowls and was designed to be suitable for playing in small halls. The principle aim of the game is the same as all other bowls disciplines‐ to deliver your bowl closer to the jack than your opponent. The game is played on a mat approximately 30 feet in length and 6 feet wide, using biased bowls of 4 inches in diameter. On the centre of the mat there is an 18 inch block and the delivery of the bowls takes place from a designated area, this prevents the game continually being killed by the firing shot and creates a more interesting and skilful game.

Cornhole

Cornhole is a game in which players take turns throwing bean bags at a raised platform board with a hole in the far end. A bag in the hole scores 3 points, while one on the board scores 1 point. Play continues until a team or player reaches or exceeds the score of 21. Cornhole dates back as far as the late 1800’s and through the years variations of the game have been played like Bean Bag Toss Game, Horseshoes, Bull’s Eye and Bags.

Cribbage

Cribbage, or crib, is a card game traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. Cribbage has several distinctive features: the cribbage board used for scorekeeping, the eponymous crib or box (a separate hand counting for the dealer), two distinct scoring stages (the play and the show) and a unique scoring system including points for groups of cards that total fifteen.

Cross-Country Skiing

Cross‐country skiing is a form of ski touring in which participants propel themselves across snow‐covered terrain using skis and poles. It is an extreme endurance sport and there is generally very little change in altitude (especially compared to Alpine Skiing). The toe of the skier’s footwear is attached to the ski with a binding, while the heel remains free. Skis are long and narrow, to distribute the weight of the skier and allow the skier to move quickly. This is a timed‐race event.

Cycling

Cycling is a time trial event where riders propel themselves forward on bicycles for a set distance. This is an endurance event. Alberta 55 plus also includes a Time‐Predicted component where the race isn’t against the clock, but how close you can be to your predicted length of time to complete the course.

Darts

Darts is a form of throwing game in which darts are thrown at a circular target (dartboard). Points are awarded depending on what section of the board the dart sticks into. The standard dartboard is divided into 20 numbered sections, scoring from 1 to 20 points, by wires running from the small central circle to the outer circular wire. Circular wires within the outer wire subdivide each section into single, double and triple areas. Players compete against one another in singles or doubles competition.

Euchre

Euchre is a trick‐taking card game most commonly played with four people in two partnerships with a deck of 24 standard playing cards. The deck consists of the A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9 of each suit. Euchre is a four‐player trump game, wherein the players are paired to form two partnerships. Partners face each other from across the table so that the play of the cards in conventional clockwise order alternates between the two partnerships. Each round, a bidding person asserts that his or her partnership intends to win the majority of the tricks in the hand.

Floor Curling

The game of floor curling was designed for those who were no longer able to ice curl due to back and knee problems. There is no sweeping and it is indoors. Wooden rocks with handles are used and the floor has shuffleboard wax on it. There are four people on a team just the same as ice curling with a skip, third, second and lead. The skip has a pointer stick to show the players where to aim the rock. The game is scored like ice curling.

Floor Shuffleboard

Floor shuffleboard is a game in which players use a pole‐‐called a cue‐‐to drive a flat, circular disc across the floor to a scoring box. Two people or teams can play floor shuffleboard against one another and try to prevent each other from scoring.

Golf

Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players (or golfers) use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes. Alberta 55 plus has modified our Golf rules to allow either low gross play or Callaway golf, for all levels of play).

Hockey

Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent’s net. The game is played between two teams with six players on the ice.

Horseshoes

Horseshoes is an outdoor game played between two people (or two teams of two people) using four horseshoes and two throwing targets (stakes) set in a sandbox area. The game is played by the players alternating turns tossing horseshoes at stakes in the ground, which are traditionally placed 30 or 40 feet apart. Modern games use a more stylized U‐shaped bar, about twice the size of an actual horseshoe. Participants in Alberta 55 plus competitions are placed in their “ringer percentage” category for more equal play.

Ice Curling

Curling is a sport in which players slide stones across a sheet of ice towards a target area. Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called “rocks”, across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game; points are scored for the stones resting closest to the centre of the house at the conclusion of each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones.

Lawn Bowling

Lawn Bowls is a strategic, challenging a fun target sport. It is played on a flat grass surface in which the objective is to roll biased balls so they stop close to a smaller ball called a ‘jack’ or ‘kitty’. It is similar to curling.

Military Whist

Military Whist is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 cards, a preset pattern of play and 12 small markers or flags. No paper scoring is necessary. Each table has a team of 4 players with a leader to control movement of play. The winning table or team is the one that accumulates the most flags as a result of playing a pre set pattern of play.

Pickleball

Pickleball is a paddle sport that combines elements of badminton, tennis and table tennis. Two of four players use solid paddles to hit a perforated ball. The sport shares features of other racquet sports.

Pool – 8 Ball

8‐Ball is pool game played on a pool table with 6 pockets and sixteen balls: a cue ball and fifteen object balls, consisting of seven striped balls, seven solid‐colored balls and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered with a break shot, the players are assigned either the group of solid balls or the stripes once a ball from a particular group is legally pocketed. The ultimate object of the game is to legally pocket the eight ball in a called pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player’s assigned group have been cleared from the table.

Pool – Snooker

Snooker is a pool game played on a green a baize‐covered pool table with 6 pockets. It is played using a cue and 22 snooker balls: one white cue ball, 15 red balls worth one point each, and six balls of different colours: yellow (2 points), green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6) and black (7). A player (or team) wins a frame (individual game) of snooker by scoring more points than the opponent(s), using the cue ball to pot the red and coloured balls. A player wins a match when a certain number of frames have been won.

Scrabble

Scrabble is a word game in which two players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a gameboard marked with a 15‐by‐15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Official reference works provide a list of permissible words.

Slo‐Pitch

Slo‐Pitch is a bat‐and‐ball sport played between two teams of nine to fourteen players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand. In Slo‐Pitch, the pitch is thrown with a high arc at a slow speed, giving the batter the easier chance of making contact.

Swimming

Swimming is a water based sport in which competitors race each other in a pool at set distances, using a variety of strokes. Alberta 55 plus currently features Freestyle, Breast stroke, Back Stroke and Individual Medley, as well as a Time Predicted race.

Table Shuffleboard

Table Shuffleboard is a game in which players push metal‐and‐plastic weighted pucks (also called Weights) down a long and smooth wooden table into a scoring area at the opposite end of the table. Shooting is performed with the hand directly, as opposed to Floor Shuffleboard’s use of cue sticks. The objective of the game is to slide, by hand, all four of one’s Weights alternately against those of an opponent, so that they reach the highest scoring area without falling off the end of the board into the alley. Furthermore, a player’s Weight(s) must be farther down the board than his opponent’s Weight(s), in order to be in scoring position. This may be achieved either by knocking off the opponent’s Weight(s), or by outdistancing them.

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent’s court. Tennis is played on a rectangular, flat surface, usually grass, clay, or a hard‐court of concrete and/or asphalt.