Air Hockey
A nice air hockey table in a home is hard to come by. Your friends and family will be delighted to join in the fun. Everyone will feel that they are at the arcade and you never even had to leave home. Pick up your air hockey table today! Who wouldn't want an Air Hockey Table? It is a classic game found in most arcades and family game centers. Now you can have an one of your own!
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Air Hockey:
Remove Friction for an Instant Hit
The original invention was an attempt as creating a "frictionless surface." Games like foosball were insanely popular – but there was always the challenge of the ball rolling to a halt, or a loss of momentum over time. So a trio of Brunswick engineers began trying to formulate a way to remove friction from the equation entirely – with the hope that a game played with no friction would create an instant classic.
They patented the idea, but even after years of struggle, it never got off the ground. Then, in 1972, a fourth person (Bob Lemieux) picked the idea up again. The original engineers had a base concept, but they had almost given up on it. But Bob was dedicated. He based his version of the game on hockey, and initially played it with a puck and mallets – but he got it to work. The first air hockey table, with its vents of low flowing air, removed most of the friction from the equation.
It hit the market like a storm. Every bar, club, and arcade wanted an air hockey table. By the mid 1970s, the invention of the air hockey table had created a "sport" that begged for competitive play. Air hockey tournaments began springing up. By 1973, we have records of teams forming (the Houston Air Hockey Association bringing about the first we have on record).
In 1975, an official association (the Air-Table Hockey Association, or USAA) formed to give governing rules to the game, to keep competitive play fair. Since 1975, there has been at least one national or World championship level tournament for air hockey each year. The champions of air hockey have stayed on top of their game, and since 1975, there have only been 12 different World Champinos.
Who would have thought that a game like air hockey would be so popular? In the 1970s, as foosball began to pick up, and pool remained popular, who could have pinpointed "zero friction" as the best new innovation for table games? Whether we credit air hockey to Bob Lemieux, or the three engineers (Crossman, Kendrick, and Baldwin), the idea has flown hard and fast (much like the air hockey pucks, across the low friction surface).
Gameplay has evolved more than the sport itself has. Though the original air hockey prototypes and rules were different, it remains the same basic sport. But the air hockey players have developed the game far more – from different "stances" or "grips" with which to use your air hockey mallet, to different positions on the table itself.
The different shots, also known as "drifts," have become more than a little complicated. The puck flies across the air hockey table in set patterns, designed to throw off your opponent's expectations and score a goal. More than that, the drifts are sometimes grouped into sets, where you intentionally hit the puck in a way that sends it flying back so you can hit it again and again in quick succession to further confuse your opponent. And there's even more! "Combos," or hitting the puck in a way that makes it look like you're going for a specific drift (or at least hitting the puck in a specific direction), but which (because of spin or quick movement) flies the other way, or into a different drift.
