The 2025 Cascadia Cup Team from Edmonds Petanque Club: David Rockwell, John Hunt, Ron Stires, Paul Dever, Mari Dever, David Sundquist, La Singkeo, Keogh Singkeo, and Tu Hoang

THANKS to Cascadia Cup team member David Sundquist for this informative article about this year’s tournament.

On the weekend of August 16-17, 2025, nine members of the Edmonds Petanque Club traveled to Portland to compete in the inaugural Cascadia Cup being held at Westmoreland Park, which is the home field for the Portland Petanque Club. The Cascadia Cup is going to be an annual event where all the petanque clubs in the Pacific Northwest send teams to compete in singles, doubles and triples matches in order to determine which club is the year’s “Best in the Northwest.” Eventually, organizer Joe Cortright explained, the goal is to create a national tournament where the winners of all geographical regions in the country will compete in a national championship to determine the top petanque club in the United States each year.

The EPC club members who competed in this year’s Cascadia Cup were John Hunt, Ron Stires, Paul and Mari Dever, La and Keogh Singkeo, David Sundquist, and Tu Hoang. The team leader and manager was David Rockwell.

Courtside in Portland, with the Cascade Cup waiting to be claimed.

All teams met on Friday evening at 5 PM to practice and then attend a social gathering at Portland Pétanque’s clubhouse adjacent to the courts. Silas Holm from Port Townsend and Joe Cortright of the Portland Petanque Club did an outstanding job hosting the event. In the clubhouse players found a long table with snacks, potluck items Portland club members had made, and beverages of all types. There were many tables inside the clubhouse where players could eat and relax. First class treatment for all.

Competition started Saturday morning at 9 AM and continued non-stop until about 7 PM. The same start time held for Sunday, but games ended about 5 PM. In all, 126 matches were held, including singles, doubles, and triples games. The scoring system allotted 7 points for a triples win, 6 points for a doubles win, and 5 points for a singles win. At the end of the tournament, the club with the most points would be declared the winner.

Competition was stiff among all the teams in the Pacific Northwest

The EPC started out slow on Saturday, and at the end of the day stood in 5th place out of 7 clubs with 61 points. On Sunday, however, the EPC gained steam and ended up with 152 points in 3rd place. Port Townsend won with 192 points, and Portland Petanque Club came in 2nd with 185 points.

Edmonds took some time Saturday evening to evaluate the day and come back ready to explode on Sunday

The star player of the weekend tournament was our own EPC member, Tu Hoang. Tu won all 6 of his singles matches; the highest score any of Tu’s singles opponents managed was 8 points. Most of Tu’s singles matches ended with his opponent scoring 5 points or less. Tu was “in the zone” all weekend. In triples the team of Tu, Keogh, and David won 5 out of their 6 matches. Their only loss was to Silas Holm’s Port Townsend team by the score of 13-11. To close out this match, Silas hit an 8-meter shot on his last boule for the win.

In one of his triples games, Tu used his last boule to point onto the cochonnet, moving it 19 inches at a 45 degree angle to the right where the Edmonds team’s boules were located, resulting in a 5-point score and winning the game. In another game, Tu’s triples team was in a bad situation with the cochonnet 8 meters out near the left boundary. The “coche” was surrounded by a number of boules from the other team who would score with two of their boules closest to the jack. No problem — Tu shot out the cochonnet to reset the end. Tu’s play all weekend was magnificent. By the end of the weekend all participants in the inaugural Cascadia Cup knew who Tu Hoang was. What a display of petanque excellence.

The name of the winning petanque team is engraved on the trophy. In 2025 that name is the Port Townsend Petanque Alliance. In 2026 we intend the name engraved on the cup to be the Edmonds Petanque Club. Thank you, Joe Cortright, Silas Holm, and the Portland Petanque Club for putting on this tournament.

With the 2025 Cascadia Cup in the books, La is already looking towards the future and next year’s tournament.