LAWRENCETOWN, NS – Some might argue that board games and playing cards are a thing of the past thanks to the popularity of games readily available on your phone, but there is one card game which seems to be making gains.
Since two former teachers launched Rink Ratz two years ago in Nova Scotia, the game has seen consistent growth. Paul and Sue Logan appeared on the Global Morning News show when they first created the game.
The game is based on Canada’s favourite past time: hockey.
The Logans often go to Atlanticview Elementary school in East Lawrencetown to catch some of the action where the students playing Rink Ratz on their lunch break.
The room is filled with kids playing the game. One player shouts out shot, when he or she matches the card that his opponent plays. If they can match it a second time, it’s a goal. Players use 8 cards in each hand with four rounds for a period in the 69-deck of Rink Ratz cards.
Paul says he had to be creative in making up games as a teacher.
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“When you teach primary you use games a lot to teach literacy and math and over the course of 21 years I invented dozens of games,” he said.
The Logan wanted to bring kids back to a time when life was simpler. “As teachers we wanted to develop a game that would bring families back together around a table,” he said.
Paul says both children and adults are buried in devices today and he hopes Rink Ratz will catch on. “I think that’s something that is front and centre in education these days, is getting kids away from devices and computers and actually getting them at tables face-to-face,” says Paul.
His idea seems to be working. “I like that you get to communicate with actual people and not internet friends,” says Grade 6 student Hailey Carson-Gordon. “I like that you can actually communicate. You can have a little laugh, you can talk with your friends, without having to type every word.”
Zoey McPhee, another Grade 6 student, says “You get to play with people that you don’t really know that much, so you kind of get to know them a little bit better.”
One girl even plays the game at home with her parents.
The school principal says teachers have found that students don’t know how to talk to each other in a game-playing situation, but Rink Ratz is helping.
“They need to have these experiences and be taught how to be involved in a social situation like game playing,” says Jim King, “and that’s what’s really been happening at the school, promoting some positive skills – great communication skills.”
The Logans are also giving back to the Cole Harbour Boys and Girls Club where they also oversee card games. “We’re donating a dollar from every game that we sell in the Atlantic Canada region to the boys and girls club and that includes 5 dollars from every t-shirt that we sell,” says Paul.
A deck of cards sells for $15. There are about 100 retail stores with the cards – mainly book stores. The Logans will host a Rink Ratz Family Fun Day at Cole Harbour Place on February 15th.
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