For 27 years, I’ve used my column every January (or February) to preach the gospel of the Mosconi Cup. Painting a picture of what makes the annual U.S. v Europe 9-ball scrum an event like no other in pooldom for those who have never experienced it in person certainly isn’t difficult. The energy. The intensity. The drama. Being in the arena is the only way to understand and appreciate pool at its best and pressure at its highest.
But don’t just take my word for it.
Rollie Williams is a comedian, video producer and creator of the popular Climate Town YouTube channel, which takes a funny-yet-informative look at climate change.
He’s also an avid pool enthusiast.
In December, Williams traveled from his New York City home to London to experience for himself what makes the Mosconi Cup special. Williams arrived at Alexandra Palace as a relatively neutral fan of the sport. It didn’t take long before impartiality went out the window and Williams found himself fully invested in shameless homerism.
Here are Rollie’s thoughts:
I can recall the exact millisecond I decided to root for Team America in the 2021 Mosconi Cup, and I’m embarrassed to say it wasn’t a good reason. It wasn’t when Team America got a 60-year-old former MVP out of Mosconi retirement to play again, it wasn’t when I handed my American passport to the guy at customs, it wasn’t even when Team America’s coach was forced to play against 5 world champions with only 24 hours notice after the previously mentioned 60-year-old player was removed from the lineup. Any of those reasons would have been fine. I, however, simply walked through the opening to the arena and was hit by a wave of lights and sounds and smells and processed one thing: there were a lot more blue shirts than red shirts in there. And that was it. My tiny little lizard brain made a snap decision: Team America needs more fans. That one little innocuous thought led to me getting my heart ripped out of my chest and stomped into the plush red carpet of the Alexandra palace less than 60 hours from that exact moment.
The Mosconi Arena is always packed, even when it’s only at half capacity. It’s uncanny. Something about the low ceilings, the narrow rows, the raked grandstands and the singular central focal point of the table. The acoustics are also extremely crisp, meaning a fan speaking at normal volume from the back row can be heard and understood quite clearly by someone, say … trying to make a difficult cut shot with their entire reputation on the line. It’s an intimacy that’s unparalleled at the highest echelons of other sports. This means if you don’t want to be a complete asshole, you need to whisper while the players are shooting, and for some reason this constant whispering creates a lot of camaraderie between you and your fellow seat mates. Soon those links grow together and entire sections become single organisms that live and die on a single turn of a ball. It’s pretty weird. As the cup started and matches began to go Team USA’s way, the little Team America section that has trauma bonded over winning just 3 in the past 15 years began to hope again. I found myself caring more and more about every single position shot, and at the end of day 1, I was a diehard Team America fan. Day 2 felt like coming back to summer camp except with a lot more beer. Someone who had paid the extra money to get a table in the America section invited anyone who wanted to come sit with him and we drank beer and alternated between whispering advice and shouting/crying, and America once again outperformed their Vegas odds taking 3 games of the 5 and ending the night with a narrow 5-4 lead. As the last 9-ball went down, the arena emptied in a matter of seconds, and the small Team America contingent buzzing with excitement and an impressive blood alcohol content. Every one of us secretly wondered whether this could be the year. Actually some people were shouting it pretty loudly.
And then came day 3. You know in little league baseball when a team is beating another team so bad they end the game early? Well there were 6 games scheduled for day 3, but after 5 crushing American defeats including an absolutely preventable tragedy to end Jeremy Jones’ Cinderella Story, Matchroom canceled the 6th game and opened the doors as the American fans drifted out of the arena broken and unrecognizable. It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all or whatever, but I was in a genuine depression that night. And not to get too cutesy with the button here, but I can also remember the exact millisecond I was able to fall asleep. I was thinking about what a shame it was that Jeremy Jones had lost like that, and if this had been a movie, he would have won and lead America to victory on day 4, and this and that, and I suddenly realized that before day 1, I didn’t even have a team to root for. I got to feel this rich tapestry of alcohol-assisted emotions simply because I decided to care. And I think that’s the magic of the Mosconi Cup. It just makes you care. Pool is fun.
