SPORTS FLASHBACK 1993: Cues racked for good at Steinbach pool hall

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This article was published 13/01/2024 (523 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Anyone who wants to get in a few last games of pool at Bert’s Billiards will have to do so within the next six weeks, because by mid-April, that form of recreation in Steinbach will be gone.

Henry Betzold, who moved Bert’s Billiards into a brand new building he built himself in 1963, and gave the town’s pool hall an aura of respectability, is calling it quits.

When the pool room goes, it will bring to a close a recreational chapter which played a role in the young lives of many present and former town residents for decades.

Betzold said business had been falling off ever since the drinking age was lowered to 18 in 1970.

It’s not only because many young people seemingly would rather drink than play pool that the game has declined in popularity, Betzold explains.

“When the 18-to-21-year-olds are not playing pool, the 16-year-olds are not playing either, because they learn the game by playing with their older friends,” he said.

Busing of students into town also cut into the business at Bert’s Billiards. Students who used to come in by car naturally stopped in at the pool room after school. Now they now have to board buses right after school or walk home several miles.

Even the old-timers who once came in to play on a daily basis, are fewer in number. “Many have died over the years, and others just aren’t interested anymore.”

But not so many years ago, things were different. The old pool room, a far cry from today’s well-lit building, had an atmosphere all its own. It literally lived up to the saying that any man who was good at pool surely had misspent his youth.

As soon as high school let out, and sometimes even sooner, as the former principal could well attest to, several dozen high schoolers would dash down to the pool room to be sure of securing a table. Loitering in the dimly-lit and smoke-filled building was very popular, since with only four tables, there was bound to be a long line waiting to get a chance to play.

In those years, parents perhaps couldn’t be blamed if they cast disapproving glances at the building or forbade their teenagers to go there. But the pool room flourished, even during the summer months.

Now approaching his pension years, Betzold plans to go into semi-retirement, after he builds himself a new house, that is.

Looking back, he feels the kids have always given him a fair shake, and why shouldn’t they, since he always preferred to treat them as adults. He even claims that the washroom artists didn’t last long.

“You can only get respect from people if you show it to them.”

Henry is almost certain that no one today could open a pool room in Steinbach and make money at it.

“In 1940, a game on the large table cost 25 cents and today, on the same table, it is 40 cents, a meagre increase when put alongside the cost increases in all other areas.”

The old pool room had its beginnings in 1931, when the late George Goossen operated a barber shop in the front part of the building. Before that the building, with living quarters upstairs, had been a butcher shop.

Even earlier, the building had been the home of the Steinbach Post, Steinbach’s German weekly newspaper.

Whatever use the new owner has in mind for the building, it won’t be able to match the colour and atmosphere the old pool hall generated. That colour and atmosphere, along with the noisy pinball machines, aging popcorn maker, and smoke-stained Coca Cola signs will be gone forever.