43
8-Ball News & Views
·
August 2009
new format with each player shooting one shot and/or
challenge from each of the 8 sport disciplines, and the
idea of players setting up the shots themselves was
implemented without a glitch.
When the final playoffs
were done, we had winners in Shootout #1 (during
Singles) and Shootout #2 (during Teams).
Congratulations are in order for all players that "took
the Artistic Pool challenge".
Those players capturing
titles were as follows:
Shootout #1:
1st - Tim Tonjum (Faribault, MN) - $300
2nd - Dustin Gunia (Omaha, NE) - $200
Shootout #2:
1st - Dustin Gunia (Omaha, NE) - $300
2nd - Jim Stonier (Brownsburg, IN) - $200
(These 2 were also awarded World Champion awards)
Another very worthwhile event took place during the 29th
Annual event - The VNEA "Cues For Kids" Program.
Many gracious companies donated cues,
cases, clothing, etc. to be raffled off dur-
ing the tournament with the proceeds
going directly to the growing VNEA Junior
Program. Thank you very much to the
following companies that donated mer-
chandise:
VALLEY
Bebob Publishing
Connoisseur Of Custom Cues
LUCASI HYBRID
Discount Custom Leather
Fisher Cues
Frank's Center
FURY
GW Collection of Cues
Guido Orlandi
J & J America
Omega Billiards
Palmer Cues
Schuler Cue
Sticks N Chicks
Tom's Q-Stix
VIKING CUE
The Team competition concluded in the early afternoon on
May 30th. It was now time to start preparing for the highly
anticipated 29th Annual VNEA Awards Banquet and
Entertainment Extravaganza. When the doors opened at
5:30 that evening, the players were greeted to a stage and
surrounding that looked like it came from a Hollywood set.
With an ultra-modern look, constantly changing strobe-type
lighting and a fog-machine puffing at every award winners
entrance, the set stole the show from the get-go!
As always, the players were treated to their pick of over a
dozen beverage stations, and the great sounds of sound-
and-look-alikes
Buddy Holly & Rod Stewart. Also, an
incredible buffet style dinner was served to the party-
goers. The Duo rocked the house throughout the hour
long cocktail party and then hung around to greet the
players and have their pictures taken with them.
Once again serving as the 29th Annual emcee was
VNEA's Director of Marketing & Promotions Brian Elliott.
Brian made sure that each and every award winner
received their accolades and with the brilliantly lit set,
everyone who stepped on the stage knew that they were
part of something special.
An incredibly entertaining slide show of the weeks activ-
ities was compilated by Britt Pearson Photography of Las
Vegas which documented a lot of the weeks tournament
festivities and this was shown to the party goers to great
crowd approval.
Acknowledged at the ceremonies were the remarkable
Manufacturer/Supplier members that help support the
growth of the VNEA International Championships by dis-
playing their products during the tournament.
They
included:
Bebob Publishing, Connoisseur of Custom
Cues, Lucasi Hybrid, Discount Custom Leather, Fisher
Cues, Frank's Center, FURY, GW Collection, Guido
Orlandi Custom Cues, J & J America, Omega Billiards,
On-Site Stress Relief, Palmer Cues, Schuler Cues, Sticks N
Chicks and Viking Cues.
Sponsoring this years championships were:
Valley · Viking Cues · FURY · Lucasi Hybrid
Special thanks to Don"Cheese"Akerlow and the crew from OTBnTV.com for their incredible
coverage,awesome interviews and live-streaming of theVNEA Championship matches
2 9 T H A N N U A L