HOT NEWS! THE FPUSA NATIONAL TOURNAMENT IN FRESNO CALIFORNIA.

 

Hello everyone and welcome,

HOT NEWS! The FPUSA National at the Fresno Petanque Club was a tremendous success. Two days of bliss. All due to the fact that the organization was fantastic, the welcome was fit for a king and queens and the food was succulent.
Players came from all over America. It was a superb weather in California. Great to see old friends and make new friends. The field was very strong. Women and men’s Doubles on Saturday and Doubles Mix on Sunday. Everyone had a chance but the dominance came from the local players of the Fresno Club. Their victory is not only due to the fact that they sleep on those courts but because they played very well.  HOT was represented by Linda Schryver, Marion Bermondy, Jim Schwobel and Arsene Dupin.   Congratulations  to everyone.

HOT NEWS! PETANQUE EXTRAVAGANZA.

Hello everyone and welcome,

Wow!  What an incredible weekend we had for the game of petanque in Texas.  We had two separate tournaments on April’s fool weekend. It was our 9th year celebration.  The first tournament was located at the Historic Browning Mueller Hangar and the next day at the Zaytouna Lounge.  Both events were attended with players from all over, some came as far as Canada, Mexico and Washington State others came from Dallas and San Antonio.  Thank you so much for keeping on supporting the Heart of Texas extravaganza Open Tournament,  thank you to all the volunteers,  thank you to all the sponsors with your donations, thank you to all  friends and family who came to watch the games, thank you to all the members and thank you to all the players who participated.

On Sunday we were blessed with great weather even so the forecast wasn’t looking so good.  The courts were beautifully prepared by our court Master Terry Plemons.  I came in early before sunrise no-one was there.   It was a beautiful feeling to be under the Hangar that was penetrated by the silence of the courts.  Club members volunteers started to arrive to set up the last minute score tables, banners, promotional material etc…  And with the sunrise the magic of the heart started to happen by looking at the smiles and excitements of the players coming to the events.  Some of those players you get to hug  only once a year but they feel like family members, other you never met before but you know that they have to have the love and the passion of the game to come from so far away to participate.   So they also become instantly part of the family.

Like Marcel Pagnol said:  (The French are proud of having invented this peaceful game of pétanque, which, while spreading around the world, works humbly but surely for peace among all people.)   And all of a sudden now all the courts are feel up with players practicing and you can  hear the magical sound of metal balls clicking.   And before you know it, bang, the blowing  of the horn announced the start of the first games.  May the best team win!  And it is a battle to make it through the four elimination rounds to stay in in the Concours or go in the consolante brackets .   The elimination consist of four timed  games of one hour with just a 5 minutes pause in between games.   After the elimination rounds to make it all the way to the finals you still will have to play and win another three games.  Wow!  This is a minimum playing of seven hours almost nonstop.   You have to remain focused at all time, you just cant loose your concentration, it is a must to  keep on focusing on the goal of making it to the top.  And at around seven pm there is only two teams remaining in the finals.  The rest of the players seats, watch, cheers and support the players in the finals.   In the finals now your concentration has to remain to the highest because fatigue become a factor after a full day of playing.  The last two teams remaining were Jeanne Marie Browning (Dallas Club) and Jim Schwobel (Heart of TX, HOT) against Amine Najah (HOT)  and Arsene Dupin (HOT).  Both teams were tie for a while but Amine and Arsene won 13/6.  And the celebration starts, you smile inwardly and the feeling of achievement englobe your heart.  Finally all those thousand of hours practicing paid of and you are holding he winning trophy in your hands.  Unreal.   But this is just day one!  Now you have to pack up the whole place keep it as clean as you found it and try to make it home at a descent time to get some rest for the next day of competition.

The Zaytouna Lounge is an entirely a different feel.   The place is not as majestic as the Hangar but does have this sweet family feeling where passioned players wants to hang out.  You can see and feel the love.  The feeling is such that you feel that you are welcomed into someone home.   And yes actually you do  because the place belong to Amine Najah who built it out of devotion for the game of Petanque.  Everyone was welcomed with his famous Moroccan tea.   We knew the weather was going to be real challenging but we were able to play in between the drops at least the first round of the four elimination rounds.   The huge part of the storm came in and the temperature drop 20 degrees and the sky became dark like if it was night.  We all had to refuge ourselves inside the Lounge. They even issued a tornado warning.  But in the Lounge everyone was happy talking with each other and getting to know one another better.  We all tried to wait for the clearing of the weather  but it was evident that it will take hours, the storm was so intense.  So we decided to go back to the covered Hangar.  When we arrived there the sun was waiting for us.  Again the court Master did his magic and quickly started to reconstruct courts like the day before.  Because of the rain  we restarted late so the finals this time went all the way 8 :15 pm.  But the beauty of the Hangar is that we have a great lights system and we can play at night.  This time the Finals was composed of Jeff Brown (HOT) and Walt Elder ( Carolina) against Karim Moumouni ( Dallas) and Bill Baker (Dallas)  Jeff and Walt had the upper hand and won.

WOW! WOW! AND WOW!  Thank you to you all!  Arsene A+ Love.

HOT NEWS! WE ARE READY TO GO OUR 9TH ANNUAL HOT EXTRAVAGANZA TOURNAMENTS.

Hello everyone and welcome,

Full weekend of fun!  We have teams coming as far as Mexico and Canada to enjoy the Austin Texas welcome.  The courts are ready at the Historic Mueller Browning Hangar and at The Zaytouna Lounge.   We like to say thank you to everyone who supported the set up of both places as well as all friends and family and sponsors who are supporting the Heart of Texas Petanque Club in any form or shape.   Here a couple of pictures of the calm before the storm.  A+ Love Arsene.

HOT NEWS!

Hello everyone and welcome,

Don’t forget this weekend it is our 9th annual HOT Extravaganza Petanque Tournaments.  April First at the Historic Browning Mueller Hangar and April second at  the Zaytouna Lounge.

In the spirit of keeping on bringing the game to Texas, the Heart of Texas demonstrates Petanque to French language students at the Freestyle Language Center
The Freestyle Language Center (FLC) is a very dynamic language school with energetic instructors who teach all levels of French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese to adults in evening and weekend classes in Austin, Texas.
On Saturday morning, March 25, 2017, FLC held an Open House as part of Francophonie Month. Attendees included current/prospective French students and their instructors. As a special gift to them, FLC arranged for the Heart of Texas Petanque Club to teach the guests some fundamentals of pétanque and give them some practical experience in the French language while learning the national pastime sport of France – Petanque.
HOTPC members Marion Bermonday and Jim Schwobel spent the morning with about 20 beginners (in pétanque), teaching them in French! After some initial instruction from Marion and Jim, the students played actual games where they got to utilize their French language skills while playing this very social game.
The students found that learning pétanque in French was an excellent way to improve their language skills because it combines lots of new words and grammar with the added fun of playing the game.   Thank you to the teachers. Merci.

A+ Arsene

HOT NEW! The Heart of Texas ninth Annual HOT Tournament. April’ Fool’s weekend. Petanque Extravaganza. Two Open Doubles Tournament in one weekend. WOW!

Hello everyone and welcome,

You are all invited to Austin TX to come participate at our ninth Annual  Open HOT Tournaments.  Two different tournaments in two different great locations.  First on Saturday April 1 at the Historic Mueller Browning Hangar, a spectacular location in the middle of Austin.  The next  day Sunday April2 at the Zaytouna Lounge, a landmark for international petanque players.  Everyone is welcome, bring your families and friends.  Register early.  A+Love Arsene.

 

HOT NEWS! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hello everyone and welcome,

Here is a recap of 2016. It was a wonderful year for the Heart of Texas Petanque Club. We played and taught the game all over the world. We organized Regional FPUSA Tournaments, organized Qualifiers for the World Championship and had our 7th annual HOT International Open. We made huge international connections with the FIPJP and the FFPJP and with great international players. We were welcomed in Angers, Austin’s Twin Sister City. We were featured at the Lone Star Le Mans at the Circuit of the America. We played many local, National and International tournaments. We had a player from Austin selected to represent USA at the Triplette World Championship of Petanque in Madagascar. We participated at the Petanque America Open. WOW, what a year! Thank you to all members, families and friends who support HOT. Without you this endeavor would not be possible. Merci.

HOT NEWS! TEAM USA AT THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP IN MADAGASCAR.

Hello everyone and welcome,

Wow, can you believe that we again we participated at the World Championship of Petanque.  But this time we went there first class, because we had a super coach the several times World Champions Marco Foyot to help us to rise to the occasion.  The host Nation this year was Madagascar, our players had to travel half way around the world and break several times zone to acclimate to the beautiful city of Antananarivo, Madagascar.  Marco Foyot was kind enough to invite the team first to go visit him and train in France on the way to Madagascar.  Only 3 members of the  Team went to France it was composed of Juan Garcia, Pascal Corchia and Walt Elder who all had the chance to  visit the Obut factory as well as do some training there and also spend time at Marco’s house in Loubeyrat that is located in the Puy-de-Dôme  in central France.   When I heard that, I knew they were in for a gift of a lifetime.  I had the opportunity myself to experience Marco hospitality and it is grandiose. Merci!

Walt one of the Team member who is from Austin Texas even had the opportunity to play in a tournament in Clermont Ferrand in Doublette with Marco as part of the training.  Wow! How about that! Too fantastic!  The Team reconnected with their fourth player P.J Mallette who traveled strait from Oregon to Madagascar.  Now that the whole Team was complete it was time to be at the opening ceremony among the 48 Countries of the best players in the World.   On the first day Pascal got sick and could not participate at the Tir de Precision so Walt had the opportunity to take his place.  What great deal to do that for him.  The next day the Team got to play their first game against the Italian team with Diego Rizzi, that is a hard team to play for a starter. And they went on to play several other Counties  China, Israel, Czech, Turkey two times, Cameroon and  Norway.   The results were not the best but the experience to be participating at the World Championship  will be engraved in their memories forever.  Congratulations to all of you.  

A+ Love Arsene.