THUNDER BAY – A tournament that featured humans playing the role of Foosball players helped raise an estimated $2,000 for the Habitat for Humanity.
The inaugural Human Foosball Tournament in support of Habitat for Humanity’s local home building project kicked off Saturday at the Home Depot parking lot. The $2,000 raised came from registration fees, pledges, and an onsite canteen
“All the funds will go to continue building affordable homes for low income families in Thunder Bay,” said event coordinator Patricia Poohachoff.
The event was well received by participants, and there was a steady stream of spectators stopping by to watch and cheer on the foosball players as they haphazardly tried to coordinate a winning strategy while working within the confines of the game space.
In total, six community teams took to the human-sized foosball field in the round-robin style tournament, which was also attended by the Thunder Bay Chill soccer team.
Teams competed in 15-minute matches on two fields that were specially built by Poohachoff, her husband and a group of volunteers.
Poohachoff said the idea of human foosball was inspired by videos friends of the organization had shown her on YouTube of people with their own variations. Habitat for Humanity thought it would be a great idea to have a tournament style fundraiser for the organization.
Now, with the fields already built, Poohachoff hopes there will be groups in the community interested in renting them for events – thereby continuing to raise funds for Habitat.
Kristi Robins of the ‘Pity the Foos’ team said she was excited to come out to support the event, and thinks that human foosball is a fun and unique activity that is appealing to a wide variety of people.
A residence coordinator at Confederation College herself, Robins expressed interest in arranging to have the foosball setup for students during residence move-in week.
“We kicked a little high, so I think we need a dome over the field to protect spectators and cars,” Robins said jokingly about ways to improve the human foosball setup.
While another sports dome is a ways off for the city, the Habitat for Humanity continues to work on their local home building project that has already constructed 29 homes and given 79 children in the Thunder Bay region safe homes and bright hope for the future.
