Air Hockey - History

History

Air Hockey was invented by a group of Brunswick Billiards employees, including Bob Lemieux, from 1969 to 1972. In 1969, a trio of Brunswick engineers - Phil Crossman, Bob Kenrick, and Brad Baldwin - began working on the creation of a game utilizing a frictionless surface. The project stagnated for several years until it was revived by Lemieux, who then focused on implementing an abstracted version of ice hockey, with a thin disk, two mallets and slit-like goals equipped with photodetectors. It was then decided that the game might appeal to a larger market and Air Hockey was born. Who deserves credit for the invention is controversial. The original patents reference Crossman, Kenrick and Lemieux. It should also be noted that the air table proper had already been patented before Brunswick's project, though for unrelated purposes.

In any event, the game was an immediate financial success and by the mid-1970s there arose substantial interest in tournament play. As early as 1973, players in Houston had formed the Houston Air Hockey Association, and soon thereafter, the Texas Air-Hockey Players Association, codifying rules and promoting the sport through local tournaments at Houston pubs Carnabys, Damians, and the University of Houston. To ensure uniform play standards of the highest competitive quality, the United States Air-Table Hockey Association (USAA) was formed in 1975 by J. Phillip "Phil" Arnold, largely as an official sanctioning body. In this way, non-player friendly rules imposed by Brunswick corporation were rendered void, and the sport of Air Hockey was secured under the control of players since that time. Since its inception, the USAA has sanctioned at least one national-level or World championship each year, crowning 12 different champions over 30 years. The USAA remains at present the only recognized worldwide player organization for Air Hockey, and has maintained a close relationship with table manufacturers and event promoters over the years. Today, professional Air Hockey is played by a close-knit community of serious players around the world, with extensive player bases near Houston, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, New York City, and Boston in the United States of America, Barcelona in Spain, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Novgorod in Russia, and Most and Brno in the Czech Republic. From the late 1980s, Caracas, Venezuela served as a hotbed of activity; three-time World Champion Jose Mora, and other finalists originated from there. By 1999 most of the Venezuelan activity had disappeared.

On 25 August 2007, Crossman, Kendrick, and Baldwin attended the Texas State Tournament at the Southfork Hotel in Plano, Texas.