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On February 14, 1929, Al Capone attempted to eliminate Bugs Moran in a somewhat botched, but
bloody gun battle. Capone hired a bunch of out-of-towners, under the direction of Machine Gun McGurn, to assassinate a rival bootlegger and his gang. Masquerading as policemen, McGurn’s men staged a fake raid and persuaded the Moran gang to surrender their weapons and line-up against a wall, where they were systematically slaughtered by machine gun fire. Even though Bugs Moran (who was late arriving to the fictitious whiskey deal) was not caught in the massacre, the event drew national attention, which caused federal agencies to concentrate their efforts on Capone and his gang. The incident became known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
On February 8, 2003, almost 74 years after the Chicago massacre, Valdez, Alaska was the site
of another massacre.
The Valdez Dart Association’s annual St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Dart Tournament has been around for over 10 years. Unlike the famous Chicago event, this day had players with names like Wheels, shooting darts instead of guns.
Valdez is a town of roughly 4,000 residents, with over 300 of those being dart players,
making the VDA the largest dart association in Alaska. Like their weekly league, all of the day’s events consisted, exclusively, of ’01 games.
Cricket has been included in past tournaments, and is likely to find it’s way into future Valdez dart tournaments, but not on this weekend. The small $2,000 contest is mostly made up of local players each year, with the exception of a few out-of-towners at times. On this weekend, as one of the exceptional out-of-towners, I had the privilege of shooting with (and against) some of the VDA’s greatest players.
Even though this was a one-day tournament, it ended up being a three-day adventure for me,
beginning with Friday the 7th.
Unlike some Alaskan dart tournaments, I was able to drive to this one. From where I live in Kenai, it is a 480-mile drive through Anchorage and two mountain passes on roads that can range from dry to impassable. On this weekend, I encountered mostly rain, some snow, and very few patches of icy road. An unusually light snowfall this winter has cut down on the number of both avalanches and moose on the road, which are common hazards to traveling darters in Alaska. Past winters have seen upwards of 400 moose killed on Alaskan roads each winter, but, to date, the count for this winter was only at 88. Avalanches on the Seward Highway from the previous Wednesday had long-since been cleared with enough remaining off the road to remind motorist of the awesome destructive power of these natural beasts.
 After the town of Glennallen, for
the 117-mile stretch of highway into Valdez, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline can be seen off and on along the route, dogging the trail
of travelers like a faithful hound. The drive to Valdez culminates in a gorgeous downhill descent from Thompson Pass, through
Keystone Canyon, and into the town of Valdez. In the winter, the drive can take anywhere from 8 to 12 hours
to make, depending on weather conditions. On this particular day, the roads were great and I made the trip in just over eight hours.
My first activity in Valdez was dinner at Mike’s Palace with my long-time
friend Kevin Maechtlin, who lives and works in Valdez. Kevin has been playing league darts here for a couple years, and has agreed to, not only put
me up for the weekend, but to be my partner in the Open Doubles event. After dinner, we dropped by the Pipeline Club for a nightcap before heading to
Kevin’s house. The Pipeline Club, like the other eight bars in Valdez, has dart teams that play out of there during the week. On the eve before the dart
tournament, all three of their boards were idle, while local patrons sat at the bar and tables for a typical Friday night discussion of local events over their
favorite beverage. The Pipeline Club also sports a restaurant and a hotel, and has been a favorite pit stop of mine for years.
Either Kevin’s a bad cook, or his bachelor lifestyle just doesn’t accommodate
feeding company, because he offered to buy me breakfast in town the next morning. On the way to breakfast, the first light of day revealed the amount
of snow on the ground. Previous winters have seen snow piled higher than the roofs on most homes, but that Saturday only found about five feet of snow
on the ground with higher piles of the wet stuff that had been cleared from the streets and stacked on empty lots.
 The only place open for breakfast at the
early hour was the Totem Inn. Decorated with mounted animals from all over Alaska, wooden tables, and a giant fireplace, the restaurant resembles a
hunting lodge from a Hollywood movie. In fact, Valdez was the setting for Steven Segal’s movie, On Deadly Ground. We
arrived at the tournament site around 9:00 AM, one hour prior to the start of the first event.
The Elks lodge was just opening up when we entered the side door into the
banquet room. Seven dartboards mounted on plywood standards adorned the two walls along the length of the room, with an eighth board set up at one end
and appropriately labeled “board 8.” The opposite end of the room housed the kitchen, which served $3 hamburgers and $2 nachos all day. Through a
door near board 8, was the main bar area and three more dartboards mounted permanently on the walls. A small mini-bar was set up in the banquet room,
also near board 8. By 10:00 AM, parking had overflowed from the lot at the Elks into the lot at the bank across the street.
Unlike most tournaments, chalkers scored on clipboards from behind the line,
which allowed for less congestion between the boards. At first, this method of chalking seemed a little weird, but later on in the day it was a welcome
break for chalkers to get off their feet and be able to score from the comfort of
a chair. Players just called out their scores as they returned from the board after throwing their darts.
Although many outside players would find Valdez’s style of scorekeeping
unusual, it was not has unorthodox has their playing format. Time dictated the format, the game, and the number of legs per match in each event. Since
I did not play either women’s singles or womens’ doubles, I can’t give much of a rendition on those events.
The first event of the day was men’s and women’s singles. The only out-of
-towners that weekend, aside from myself, was Steve Norvelle and Tammy Cook of Kenai. They had also made the drive to Valdez and arrived at the
Elks just in time for the singles. The men’s singles divided 16 men into two round robin groups of eight with each match consisting of a single leg of 501,
straight start, double out. Four men advanced from each group into an elimination round, where the matches changed to best two of three legs of
301 double on, double out.
I met my long-time friend, and rival, in the finals of the men’s singles. Marc
Grugier has been throwing darts in Alaska for as long as I can remember. Ever since I have known this big Hawaiian, he has always thrown in his bare
feet. This past year he lost the big toe on his left foot, and this was the first
dart tournament that I have ever seen him wear shoes. I wondered if this would be a change that he was still adjusting to, but was convinced otherwise
after he took the first leg of the match from me. I did manage to pull off the last two legs in that match to win my first singles event in over a year.
Open doubles, scheduled to start at noon, did not get started until nearly
2:00 PM. I teamed up with my buddy, Kevin, and after a first round loss in the round robin bracket, managed to win the next three to reach second
place going into the last two matches of 701 straight start, double out. This game has a level of parity that is not rivaled by too many other sports.
Primarily, the parity lies with the concluding double in each game, but the round robin format also affords some unique scenarios.
In the end, it was a combination of both parities that spiraled us to a fifth
place finish in the bracket. Placement was determined by the bracket only, as there was no following elimination round. After the open doubles, my
buddy, Kevin, called it a day. The tournament was his first, and the smoke,
combined with the continuous playing, had taken its toll on his body. I admit that my feet were a little sore, but I was ready for the next event.
The mixed doubles event reared its ugly head at about 5:00 PM. The mixed
doubles event is my unicorn. This has not been my best event in past tournaments, and it was with some apprehension that I pressed forward.
Melonee Galaviz, of Valdez, offered to shoot with me. Evidently, accounts of my mixed doubles history had not made it as far as Valdez.
The teams were divided into two brackets with each match consisting of one
game of 701 straight start, double out. Melonee and I won all but our last match, to propel us to the elimination round where we met my fellow Kenai
players, Steve and Tammy. Since Steve and I work together and shoot on the same league team, he was quite confident in issuing predictions of my
demise. The elimination round saw matches of one game of 501 straight start, double out. Somehow, Melonee and I advanced to the finals, where we
met her husband Jesse and his partner, Cindy Compehos. It was nearly 8:00 PM when I claimed my fourth-ever mixed doubles title.
I teamed up with Steve and Tammy from Kenai, and Jennie Sodergren of
Valdez, for the four-person mixed team event. We were not an example of consistency, as is common with many four-person teams, and our scores
were downright comical at times. The event was one round robin bracket with all seven teams, and our record remained competitive throughout the event.
By the last match, my feet and legs could barely support the rest of my body
. Steve and Tammy, like my buddy Kevin, were unaccustomed to the long hours of darting, and the hours of playing had inflicted several areas of
discomfort on their bodies. Jennie seemed to be the only member of our team who was not tired and hurting. We lost the last match to get into a
three-way tie for the two third place purses. We barely finished second in the three-way game of 501 for the tiebreaker at 12:20 AM.
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