Batavia club to host Viking lawn game state tournament

Feel like tossing blocks and knocking stuff down, but in a friendly, sanctioned way?

Then the Illinois Kubb Championship in Batavia is the place to be Saturday morning.

The Energy City Kubb club is hosting the matches, and newcomers who don’t know anything about the lawn sport are welcome.

“It’s extremely easy to learn,” said club member Scott Kent of Batavia.

The game has 10 wooden blocks, called kubbs (pronounced koobs), which are set up on the baselines of an 8-by-5-meter pitch. A tall block, called a king, is in the middle.

Teams of two to six players take turns tossing the batons underhand to knock down the other team’s kubbs. If your kubbs are knocked down, you have to toss them onto the other team’s side of the pitch, then knock them down before you resume knocking the baseline kubbs. The first team to knock down all of the other team’s kubbs then takes a shot at knocking down the king.

“Every single game is different,” Kent said.

Legend has it the ancient Vikings would play this after a battle, using skulls as kubbs and thigh bones as batons. Some have described it as a cross of bowling, horseshoes and maybe a little chess.

The day begins at 8 a.m. with registration and a lesson on how to play kubb. Then the tournament begins. Teams are guaranteed to play at least seven games. The event expects to wrap up with the championship match around 1:30 p.m.

The entry fee is $50 per team. Spectators can watch for free.

Twenty-one teams had already signed up as of Tuesday afternoon. Teams are coming from North Carolina, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, Kent said.

The tournament will be held at the Batavia Moose Lodge, 1535 S. Batavia Ave. (Route 31), in Batavia. The club plays there every Tuesday night, all year.

“It is such a community-building activity,” Kent said.

To register, visit the club’s website at energycitykubb.com.

ssarkauskas@dailyherald.com