OLDS — A dart tournament, cobbled together in just three weeks raised $1,000 for Olds & District Special Olympics (ODSO).
The one-day tournament was held April 1 at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #105.
Organizer Cathy Ould says given the short space of time to stage it, the tournament was a great success and she’s confident it will be bigger and raise even more money next year.
“We had a blast. It turned out way better than we had expected,” Ould said during an interview with the Albertan.
“It turned out really well and I’ve had 20 people say you’ve got to do it bigger next year.”
Jaques Smith, along with his son A.B. and Tara Cox won the tournament.
“They’re wonderful, wonderful people and great shots,” Ould said.
Betty Anne and Dave Fountain came in second.
The third person on their three-person team didn’t make it to the event so they played with a “ghost," a common practice if a dart tournament has an uneven number of players.
“The ghost gets 26 points per turn. So Betty Anne would shoot, Dave would shoot and then they would add 26 points to their score (and so on),” she said.
The tournament was put together in March after an annual sno-pitch tournament, which also raised money for Special Olympics was cancelled, due to a shortage of teams.
“With a little more time and a little more planning, yeah, we’re definitely going to do it (the dart tournament) next year, that’s for sure,” Ould said.
Only 10 teams participated, short of the 12 Ould had been hoping for.
However, Ould said that’s due to the short amount of time to organize the tournament. She’s confident that with more time, she can likely at least double that figure.
She said Legion officials have told her they can open up a larger room to accommodate more dart boards and Ould is sure she can round up more boards.
“I only had three weeks to plan this. I just invited all our friends from our dart circle and then put it to the public kind of last minute to sell.
“That was my mistake. I should have done it right off the hop, just made up the poster.
“It was a learning curve for sure, but like I said, it went so well. We raised a thousand bucks and we learned, and next year we’re going to do it bigger and better.”
Specifically, the tournament raised $913. Many people donated their money back to beef up the amount raised. Ould and her husband Andrew donated the remaining $87 to make an even $1,000.
“That was our goal and we pretty much got there,” Ould said. "It was nice that people were generous to give it back to us to help out.”
Ould plans to give the money to ODSO later this week.
She’s very grateful for the help they received from a Calgary dart equipment supplier that donated nearly $100 worth of items to be raffled off, knowing it was a fundraiser for a good cause.
