Some great ideas are borne out of sheer embarrassment.
That’s how an indoor bocce league planned for this fall at 89 North Music Venue came to be.
In this case, it was the Patchogue-Medford Public Library bocce team that got laughed off the court (slight exaggeration) at 2015’s bocce tournament during the St. Liberata Festival in Patchogue.
“We lost to the losers,” lamented Laura Accardi, a library staffer.
But as the players were walking away from the courts in shame, they realized something: Bocce is a heck of a lot of fun.
Accardi started researching online, and soon found bocce leagues, both indoors and outdoors, were being run throughout the U.S. by a company called American Bocce Co. of Chicago. (They have a great website; click the link.)
“They’re really popular in the micro-brewery scene,” she said.
So Accardi got the company’s founder on the horn, ordered up some courts and found a host site in 89 North, located at 89 North Ocean Avenue in Patchogue.
“Everyone’s on board and we’re taking bocce in Patchogue to the next level,” she said.
The games will be held every Tuesday starting Oct. 18 and the league will run for seven weeks. But things are kicking off with a free night of indoor bocce at 89 North this Monday, Columbus Day. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
The league fee for fall is $260 for a team of four. And 89 North will be running drink specials every Tuesday during the bocce nights.
And that will help on the wallet, because most everyone knows the golden rule of bocce:
You must have a drink in your hand when you throw!
The bocce nights are 21 and over.
Contact ben@americanbocceco.com for more information.
