Crossage

Ash Wednesday is a holiday in Belgium where the area locals came out to play a fabulous game of crossage. Here is an example of some Americans playing  crossage a few years back.
The goal of the game is to hit your cholette (a wooden ball the size and shape of a grenade) with your rabot (a wooden mallet a cross a between a hockey stick and a golf club) in as few hits as possible to the empty beer keg. We played in two teams of 3 people and we took turns hitting the cholette. Which, you have to yell "Cholette!" before you hit it so everyone else on the street knows to look out. (I got hit 3 times from a rolling chollete, my husband got hit once pretty hard....he wasn't paying attention) The team that hits the keg first gets a round of drinks paid for by the losing team.
In the town of Chievres, there were 29 kegs for us to hit, set up all around the town. We did not play all the kegs and we did not drink at all of them either. (we're responsible crossage players) We did, however, pay for all the kegs we lost, much to the delight of our opponents.
I believe that Chievres started inviting the Americans as a show of friendship a few years back, and let me tell you, they made some money off of us! There were about 180 Americans playing, along with a few other nationalities from SHAPE. Our team consisted of a British Colonel, my husband and myself against an American Colonel, a German Colonel and an American contractor. We had to buy our rabots and cholettes for 33 Euro and it cost another 23 Euro to play, I believe. Three of that was for insurance in case we broke any windows or other property. (we did not!) Next year, we'll have our equipment so we will only have the cost of the game. Then, each of the kegs has a tent or residence selling beverages and snacks. Jupiler was the cheap drink of choice for many of the tents, and even selling them at 1,30 Euro, they still made a good profit.
The game itself was so much fun. There seems to be little consistency with the making of the cholettes or rabots, so some of them were much more can shaped and heavier than others. For the uphill shots, we played with the smallest cholette in hopes that it was give us the advantage of lightness. I don't know if it really helped or not. Our ringer was the British Colonel that was lucky as could be with some of his shots! He hit one from a block and a half away that took a bounce on the cobbles, hopped the curb and hit the keg right in the middle.
It was such a beautiful day for February in Belgium, about 50 degrees and the sun was out almost all day. The wind was chilly, but we were in-between houses and stores most of the time, so it was no big deal. Crossage was the most fun have had since being in Belgium, and that's saying something. We didn't see anything historical or significant, but we laughed and enjoyed a local sport that means alot to the Belgians in this region. We can't wait until next year!! I might even have to get team shirts made!