A flippin’ family: Regina pinball is more than a hobby, it’s a home

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Flip, don’t flop.

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In the back room of a Regina bar, this thought bounces and rolls subconsciously in the minds of folks standing in front of rectangular cabinets set horizontally on four legs.

Beneath panes of glass, steel balls also bounce and roll — off bumpers, up ramps, along tracks and then down, only to be buoyed again by the paddle-slap of fingers on buttons, emulating the flippers they control.

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Nudge, don’t tilt.

Eyes flit fore and aft, occasionally struggling to match the speed of action across colourful fields of play. Clenched jaws are illuminated by lights dancing in ways that would make a slot machine blush. Ears strain to hear the sound of the relevant machine against the cacophony of many others.

Sustain, don’t drain.

But why? What brings people to this back room at Birmingham’s Vodka and Ale House, or to another bar with pinball machines, or to the homes of like-minded people who own a cabinet or two?

Pinball in Regina, as described by those who partake, can be both an act of defiance and a culture of acceptance. It is an intergenerational bridge — appreciation of the mechanical, the tactile, the analog, locked in a romantic tango with the modern age, the internet, the digital. It is a true social environment that can make space for the introvert.

But if you ask outright, most folks will simply say “the people.”

Organized pinball in Regina features a diverse cast in terms of gender, age, experience and background.

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“I’m the oldest one here,” says Charles Osachoff.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been playing. Forty years, maybe 50 he says.

Other members of the Queen City Pinball League (QCPL) stood nearby, razzing Osachoff about his age and saying the veteran player “has his own fan club.”

“He’s our EM guru,” one man notes, using an abbreviation for electro-mechanical — the oldest style of pinball cabinets.

Osachoff says he played pinball before video games were invented and picked up an old EM cabinet in university, which he later found time to fix.

Because he was a professional software programmer, Osachoff enjoys “debugging” things. Fixing the old mechanical machines gave him something to work on that he could touch and feel.

“The newer machines have better diagnostics, so they can tell you basically what’s wrong,” he says. “But the older ones, you have to sort of figure it out.”

Like many who are deeply involved in the hobby, Osachoff has had multiple machines. He’s fixed and sold them and when others have trouble with the older machines, they give him a call.

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“I think it’s growing,” he says of the pinball scene. “Now that they’re being broadcast on the Internet, Twitch, like that, there’s a lot of people getting interested.”

Twitch is a video streaming service that’s popular with gamers. Video available through Twitch often allows viewers to watch a person play a game, sometimes live.

For the Regina pinball crew’s higher-stakes events, Brett Schiissler sometimes employs his technical skills and equipment to offer an online view of the action through Twitch. Thanks to a mobile frame rigged with multiple cameras and microphones, observers of Schiissler’s streams can see the table top in play and the digital display mounted on newer machines, plus a view of the player to capture reactions and a wide shot showing the general event.

Schiissler says he used to be a person who watched the streams, studying technique, strategy and nuances of various games. When Regina pinball’s previous stream operator moved on, Schiissler jumped on the opportunity to give back.

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“I thought, ‘well, I have a background in that type of thing — audio-visual stuff. OK, why don’t I?’”

Schiissler’s interest in gaming didn’t start with pinball. Playing popular online video games like Call of Duty or Fortnite allowed him to socialize while relaxing at the same time.

“But it was just kind of lacking something for me, personally,” he says.

After being introduced to pinball, Schiissler says he found what was missing. Playing video games online with friends isn’t the same as the face-to-face interactions he has at pinball events.

“I’m not really a video-gamer now,” he adds.

Still, modern pinball cabinets can scratch a few itches that video games have left behind. Some offer a chance for players to track their scores, game progress and earn various “achievements” through the use of QR-code scanning technology and a cellphone application.

Schiissler says these features can add depth to a game.

While the social element is something he values, he points out that pinball is like most video games in that it can also be a solo activity.

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“You got the best of both worlds,” he says.

Kate Pearce agrees.

“I think that a lot of us are introverts or, like, extroverted introverts,” she says. “We can play quietly by ourselves sometimes, but we can also come together and, like, play together.”

Pearce has been playing pinball as long as she can remember.

“I grew up in a house with a jukebox,” she says. “As a kid, I thought everybody had a jukebox.”

When her dad needed parts for the machine, he’d take her down to John’s Jukes in Vancouver. While he was dealing with John, she’d stand on a milk crate playing one of the pinball machines in the business.

Pearce started playing competitively in B.C. before moving to Saskatchewan, where she eventually found the pinball community in Regina. She enjoyed it but was rusty and stopped until she took up playing again with a friend and co-worker, Shannon Berry-Krieser.

Not a long-time player then, Berry-Krieser started taking the game seriously and launched what’s called the Flippin’ Queens Pinball League (FQPL).

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“She’s really the reason I kind of came back out and started playing competitively again,” Pearce says.

The FQPL is sometimes referred to as the women’s league but, according to an online description, it’s also for “other people traditionally under-represented in the pinball world, including: two-spirit, trans persons, and those that exist outside the gender binary.”

Pearce refers to herself as gender diverse and says “male-dominated” spaces can be intimidating. She says the FQPL offers her a safe space and sense of community.

For Berry-Krieser, the women’s league provides a sense of empowerment.

“I’m a punk kid at heart, basically. And, yeah, this is just like an extension of that,” says Berry-Krieser, referencing feminist punk band Bikini Kill and singer Kathleen Hanna, who’s known for calling girls to the front.

“So when we start a new round or in a tournament, all these women line up and we walk up to the machines at the same time. So it’s like a literal depiction of girls to the front, guys to the back.

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“There’s just something really ritualistic but really empowering about giving women space to do that.”

That said, Berry-Krieser’s experience in the QCPL was positive when she started attending events a little over two years ago. The league is open to all players, with age restrictions depending on the venue.

“The guys were, like, encouraging new players and encouraging more female players,” she recalls. “I didn’t feel awkward or like I was imposing and I was allowed to carve out my own space within the group.”

Berry-Krieser now participates in both leagues and often pitches in to help Shaun Amos, who is a QCPL organizer.

“Our women’s league has taken off,” Amos says, praising the effort behind its success in diversifying the league.

What he’d like to see next is more kids, a current challenge given that many of the QCPL events take place in an adults-only venue.

“That’s definitely the next frontier,” he says.

Like many others, Amos’ interest in pinball began when he was young. His uncle had an old “Apollo” pinball cabinet that left an impression.

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Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

Maybe that’s why he’s spent a lot of time on the internet and listening to folks like Osachoff so he could learn about pinball machine repairs. Maybe it’s why he wears a head lamp during league nights and hustles from playing to repair duty whenever one of the machines goes down.

Amos might not describe himself as sentimental, but he talks about the days he’d slip away from work at lunch and head to Regina’s Wonderland arcade, which now only exists in memories.

A lot of the games there were a little rough but anyone who has ever loved anything, or anyone, tends to accept flaws as personality.

The QCPL plays on a variety of machines representing multiple eras. Sometimes the games get moody or break down, especially the older ones.

While Amos might cuss a bit while he diagnoses the problem, he’s not all that bothered.

Maybe he kind of likes it.

Because he has a passion.

It’s why he offers a few pointers to kids he sees out trying a machine for the first time. It’s why he does interviews with journalists. It’s why he can’t hide his own excitement.

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“Honestly, just seeing people enjoy it — I love that,” says Amos.

Against the rows of machines, some players stand as statues and others shimmy, their hips twisting as if to urge the ball in a desired direction. Occasionally, a foot kicks out backward. One man slouches and drives his hips forward like an old-west gunfighter drawing a pistol as he manipulates the machine in an effort to buoy the steel sphere.

This is ballroom dancing.

Eventually — whether heralded by a grunted expletive or simply a sigh of acceptance — it’s GAME OVER!

While it might sting sometimes, those words are less of a period and more of a comma.

There is good-natured ribbing. There are smiles. There is laughter. There will be encouragement. There will be belonging.

And … there will be another ball.

More information on Regina’s pinball leagues can be found at www.qcpinball.ca/

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