Friday, July 05, 2019

What I Love About the Game of Darts

This is my entry into the contest hosted at dartnutz.net to win a set of Mission Darts.

First I will say that I do not see "The Game of Darts" as a game at all.  I see it as a hobby and also as a sport.  A hobby, because (at least for me) is is a constant source of joy in my life whether I do well at it or not, because I enjoying thinking about it, writing about it, collecting the artifacts, and contributing to the online community, and above all, playing it!  I see it as a sport because it requires true skill that only comes with dedication and practice, and because men and women everywhere vie at the oche, locked in competition, with a burning desire to win.  So anyway, on to my entry:

What I Love About the Game of Darts:

There are three specific things that I can name that allow me to accurately describe "Darts" as the best game ever, in the history of everything:

  1. The People
  2. You cannot buy your way to victory
  3. Its tremendous vastness of variety
Allow me to expound each point:

The People:  The people I have met playing darts in league and in pubs all over are some of the finest people I have ever met.  They are like-minded, friendly, and always helpful to beginners in the sport.  I have been participating in my local league for the last 16 years and the people here in this league are like family to me.  I love them all, even when they are cantankerous and out of sorts due to their errant arrows.

You cannot buy your way to victory.  Period.  Let's face it: you can assemble some pretty expensive darts if you want to, enhanced with all the latest technological gimmicks.  You can invest in custom crafted darts, or just "high-end" darts like GT's or Black Widows, equip them with spring loaded grippy points, carbon or titanium stems with spinning flights, etc, and none of that will help you hit the Treble-20.  Only skill and confidence can help you do that.  In the early 2000's I saw a guy drop into a local Sunday Luck, end up "in the barrel", pick up a set of brass bar darts that weren't even a matching set, and win every single leg. When I told him that I thought what he did was amazing he just shrugged and said "It's the artist, not the brush."

Vast, Vast Variety: I think half the reason I am so attracted to darts as a hobby is because it perfectly fits several aspects of my personality: I am a writer, and there are no end of things to say about darts; I have a competitive spirit, and darts requires focus, confidence and skill to excel in it; and I have inherited the collector gene, and darts is a game that has no end of interesting artifacts.  The vastness of the variety of darts and dartboards that have been produced over the last century (and more) is literally mind boggling to me.  And even better, as a community, we have not even scratched the surface of what can be done with the dart-form aesthetically speaking.

So anyway, there you have it.  This is why I love the game of darts :)

2 comments:

adwjr said...

Hey how are ya its been a while Alan Williamson from the former roundofnine.com love catching up on your blog. Life took me in new directions im remarried now with two kids 6 and eight both boys. Rebuilt a new dart room and been back in the leagues for the first time in 10 years. Ive reimagined my dart collection and cant believe how far the industry has come. So much more variety. Send me a text sometime as i have no current website up ill text you some pics. Hope all is well. 617-834-2526

Zeeple said...

Hi there! Long time no hear-from. I am very happy to hear that you are back into darts. I myself have gone though something of a hiatus. I lost all interest in darts for about 5 or 6 years and did nothing with the blog or collecting or anything. I started to get back into league just before the pandemic but then the pandemic shot the leagues all to hell.

If you are thinking about putting stuff online again, you should consider a blog. It is a great venue for sharing pics, sharing thoughts, and in general waxing philosophical. And if you did start a blog I would follow it without question. I don't blog much anymore but I should. Once I can safely go out and throw in league again I probably will.