Blog

Oct 18, 2024

Senior pool shark is still behind the 8 ball at 92 | Telegraph-Journal

Canadian Senior Games champion Nan Thibodeau still wracking up the victories five decades after taking up the sport You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an

Canadian Senior Games champion Nan Thibodeau still wracking up the victories five decades after taking up the sport

You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.

In the early morning hours 40 years ago, Nan Thibodeau first picked up a pool cue.

Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.

Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.

Create an account or sign in to keep reading.

Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.

Don't have an account? Create Account

Five decades later, at 92, the sharp-shooting nonagenarian is still wracking up victories at least three days a week.

Along the way, Thibodeau has pocketed a 2018 Canadian Seniors Games 8-Ball gold medal and too many trophies to count. She’s also cued up a lifetime of friends and memories and a passion for a sport that keeps her young.

In 1984, Thibodeau finished her bartending shift at the Saint John Press Club in the uptown and headed to meet her husband at the Odin’s Wrath Bikers Club headquarters in the north end.

With no interest in the clubhouse revelry that captivated her husband, Thibodeau, then 52, wandered over to a five-foot by nine-foot pool table and picked up a cue. It was there, she says, in the middle of a smoke-filled room populated by beer-belting bikers, their friends, and hangers-on, that she fell in love with the game.

“There was something about pool that got into my blood and stayed there,” she said in an interview at Fairville Shooters on Saint John’s west side. “I kept wanting to get better and better, and I’m still learning today.”

Her desire to improve was so strong that she sought lessons from local pool legend Winnie (Winston) Avery. For $5 an hour, once a week, Thibodeau soaked up everything she could about the game.

“If you were interested in playing pool in those days like I was, he was one of the best shooters around. So if you are going to take lessons, you might as well learn from the best, so I asked him,” she said.

“I felt that he was such a good player that he could teach me right from wrong, how to hold your cue and stay down, which he did. He was easy to get along with, and my few lessons with him stuck with me.”

Within a month, Avery told his protege that a team in a local pub league had a spot open for a female player. He suggested she take it. Brave as she was to take up pool at a biker club and seek lessons from one of the city’s best, Thibodeau waivered at joining a team headed by another local pool impresario – Adrian “Junior” Wedge.

With Avery’s assurance and four weeks of pool experience, Thibodeau joined the team of a man who, in 2002, became the first player in his sport to be inducted into the Saint John Sports Hall of Fame.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, Junior Wedge.’ And Winnie just looked at me and said. ‘Don’t worry, you’re ready. You’ll learn as you go,’ ” Thibodeau recalled.

“Still, I thought, ‘he’s a New Brunswick champion. I’m not good enough to be on his team,’ and Junior did watch every move you made.”

More to come …

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.