A Retired Captain of the Fire Department Becomes the Captain of a Shuffleboard Team

Tim McKinney walks into the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club like he owns the place. He says hello to Tamara, an employee walking the expansive 17,000-square-foot space, and brings a giant smile to her face. A handful of times, he pauses our conversation to check in with shuffleboard teammates who flow in as league games are about to start. Tim knows this place, and this place knows Tim. When I asked owner Jonathan Schnapp for a good regular to interview, he instantly said Tim was my man. The sixty-seven-year-old retired captain at the New York Fire Department had his eye on the Royal Palms the moment he noticed Schnapp working on the venue because Tim has lived a few blocks away for thirty-five years. As soon as he learned it was to become a sprawling—and gorgeous—Palm Beach–style shuffleboard house, Tim was in; nevermind that he’d never played shuffleboard in his life.

And what a journey it’s been. The captain of the fire department became the captain of two different shuffleboard league teams: the VIPPs (Volunteers in Prospect Park—how Tim spends his time nowadays) and Second Place (a play on words: it’s a street name, not the position they’re jockeying for). Second Place just came in fourth place out of twenty teams. Not bad for a team of six casual friends rather than the intimidating teams of Brits or Mathematicians who know each other very well, Tim says, and play to win.

Originally from Castleton Corners on the North Shore of Staten Island, Tim joined up with the Army and served in Vietnam. “Shit, you’re eighteen years old and people are dropping mortars on you,” he says. “It’s in my suitcase, my baggage. In a positive sense. Yeah, I was in Vietnam and demonstrated against going into Iraq.” He goes on to explain, per capita, how his home borough paid the highest price: “Staten Island’s too eager to send their kids into war.” After the Army, Tim went to college on the GI Bill and graduated with a degree in meteorology, before enlisting with the FDNY and working every borough but the one he hails from.

When we start discussing his decades as a fireman, Tim requests that we don’t talk about 9/11. It seems that as a firefighter he’s seen and fought a lot of demons. Perhaps that’s why being a regular at the Royal Palms brings him so much joy. Maybe when he calls it a “Disneyland for grown-ups,” he also means it’s an escape. While he has a brother and sister he sees on Staten Island, he’s also here three to four times a week, and he says the teams are like family to him. As he sipped on a cranberry and soda (he quit drinking long ago; it no longer did anything for him, he said), we talked logistics versus tactics in shuffleboard and the Army, whether shuffleboard is an old man’s game, and all the friends and family the Royal Palms provides for him.

I’m walking down Union Street, going to the movies. Tumbling out of the building comes a woman in an industrial mask, looking like a space invader. Behind her is a big guy in an industrial face mask. It’s Ashley and Jonathan, the owners, and I look at the building, and they take off their masks. I ask, “What’s going on in there?” They say, “Oh, we’re redoing the floors in there. We’re building shuffleboard courts.”

It’s like Disneyland for grown-ups.

I’m here three, sometimes four times a week. It’s like Disneyland for grown-ups. You have some refreshing drinks. You have a food truck come. And the food truck is a different dish every time: sometimes it’s pizza, sometimes it’s grilled cheese. There’s something always changing and moving going on. Look, everyone is doing something here. They’re not sitting and staring into space.

It’s contagious. The next thing you know, you are having fun. That’s the big thing. Come here on a Friday or a Saturday night. I mean, it’s like a three-ring circus, except you’re part of the circus.

Shuffleboard gets to be a very strategic game. When Jonathan opened up, he had some pros come here, and we got to play a game with them. And the guy I stood next to, he’s my opponent, and he says, “Okay, tell me everything that comes into your mind while you play.” They are thinking, “How can I affect his next shot?”

I never was a chess player, but it’s probably like chess.

The kind of player you wanna be, you wanna talk to your opponent. You want to say, “How are you?” Those teams at the top of the board, they get so wrapped up in it that it loses something. And that’s why I’m on the team that I’m on now. They are all beginners and all here to have fun.

There are several all-women teams, and some of them are up on the top of the board. You have to be smart, and you have to practice. But you don’t have to be 250 pounds to play. I’ve seen grandmothers beat twenty-two-year-old guys.

I’ve seen grandmothers beat twenty-two-year-old guys.

I usually have a name tag that I wear, but I don’t have it tonight. It just says Timothy. I got it from working in the park because they want you to wear name tags. The first thing you do when you meet a new person is forget their name. My name’s pasted right on me. It makes it a lot easier. The conversation can flow a lot easier. I don’t wear the name tag when I walk here, y’know? But, here, I want everyone to know my name.

I’m single. I’ve never married. I have an older brother and sister on Staten Island. So, jeez, you know, maybe this is working as a family to me.

It’s such a silly game, but there’s so much else going on.

June 16, 2015

(Photos by Phil Provencio)