Canadian Pinball Championships 2013... PART 2!

Hello again and welcome to the second half of my trip report on the 2013 Canadian Pinball Championships! Check out the first part here if you haven't already! We looked at some of the lineup of this year's tournament, which so far included two fantastic original tables, The Getaway and White Water, as well as a table with a really strange movie license, that being Bram Stoker's Dracula...

Pinball has always had some weird licenses for tables often based on movies, television shows, musicians and what-have-you. For odd licenses, you have Phantom of The Opera, Barb Wire and Dolly Parton among many, many others. Nowadays, Stern plays it pretty safe with their choices for pinball licenses, usually sticking to big budget movies, like Iron Man, The Avengers and Transformers but they also do the occasional unusual license, like Wheel of Fortune or Big Buck Hunter Pro. Anyways, I left off the last post with a teaser of one of the tables at the Championships and it's strange movie tie-in, Williams' Congo.

I've never heard of the movie Congo until I saw the pinball machine based on it... I still haven't seen the movie but I heard it's a stinker anyways. Here's something else I did not know... Congo is an adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel, Congo!

Canadian Pinball Championships 2013

Geeze louise, the summer is a busy time for pinball! I've been on an adventure for pinball already, traveling throughout St. Catherines on a pinball journey. On July 6, I made my way out to the Don Mills and Lawrence area for the annual Canadian Pinball Championships!

This is the annual tournament for the Toronto Pinball League. Last years' championships were held at Playdium Mississauga. This year, the championships took place in the Banquet Hall of Jubilee United Church. This was quite out of the way for a fella like me that has to take public transportation. Getting to Jubilee United Church would have taken an hour and a half to get there by TTC, however, a good friend of mine, Kareem of Occupied Artists, was kind enough to give me a lift! BIG THANKS TO KAREEM for the ride to the Championships!

The previous year was a showcase of Stern's latest line-up, with tables such as AC/DC, Avatar and The Rolling Stones being some of the machines available for tournament play. X-MEN MAGNETO EDITION made a suprise appearance at the Championships as well!

This year was different; instead of a full Stern line-up, it was mainly 90's era tables as well as a Pin*Bot and AC/DC table rounding out the tournament lineup. The lineup was mostly Bally and Williams tables although a Sega table did make an appearance! Let's look at the line-up...