PICKLED ONION PUB; RENTON, WA
Focus on new recruits at Pickled Onion

By Ty Hughes

On Saturday, July 12th, the Pickled Onion English-style Pub in the Renton Highlands hosted their monthly $500 Gtd. Added Parity Shoot to a thirteen-team field of players.

Pickled Onion’s dart coordinator, Cal, graciously opened up the floor to his faithful constituents and they voraciously took to the boards with a vengeance. Losing is never easy, it’s how you handle it that makes you what you are. Unfortunately, losing is an integral part of any sport and if you’re going to play, you have to face the possibility of losing. Believe me, I know this aspect very well. The upside to having non-winners (losers is such a derogatory term) is that there is always a winner on the opposite end of the spectrum. As it turns out, the Pickled Onion rolled out several winners that night. In order of appearance, they were as follows:

3rd Place ($120): Sandy and Larry. It was only Sandy’s second tournament and she was ecstatic about being paired up with one of the sports best players in Larry Mead.
2nd Place ($180): Mike and Jenn. Mike Gambini is just back from six years in Las Vegas and glad to be home. He prefers the heat at the dartboard over the heat in the desert. Not picking up his darts once over the last six years, his game hardly suffered at all, looking like he didn’t miss a beat.
1st Place ($300): Steve and Paula. Paula’s very first tournament was a wild success. She’ll surely be hooked after this one. Steve was a great asset to her evening of play.

Lenna Dougherty was in da house! We haven’t seen Lenna for many years after she stepped away from the game, but she’s excited to re-enter the game and we’re all glad to see her back in play. Lenna left the game while on top – one of the sport’s highest-rated female players.

Cal was grateful to host such a high caliber of returnees in the likes of Mike and Lenna, but he’s equally grateful for all of his novice players who are brand new to the game. In fact, nine of his 22 Summer league teams were comprised of brand new players. Awesome! Way to go, Cal, that’s exactly what we need – fresh blood!

The Pickled Onion averages up to 29 teams for their regular Parity Draw tournaments and hopefully this is the way we are headed. Good news for the sport, offering a potential winning spot to brand new players like Paula and Sandy is the key to the growth of the game and the future of the sport as a whole.

Drop in and check out the popular parity shoots at the Pickled Onion each and every month. Settle in, make some new friends, play some darts and sip a cool, frothy beverage of your choice. Say hello to Cal and his new girlfriend, Jenn. The Pickled Onion is always on the cutting edge, often setting the standard within the sport of darts and beyond. Owners, Sean and Jennifer Erskine are proving to be revolutionary in their visions as depicted by their choices surrounding the darts at their bar.

They’ll be taking the month of August off from any tournaments, but September promises to be a big month and don’t hesitate to stop in for a great time or some good practice!