New Years Day, 8 a.m., Main Street in downtown Stillwater is lined with teams of four that have been waiting for hours for the doors to open. All in hopes of receiving a ticket hopefully numbered something  between 1-64. If not, their efforts were wasted.

Based on a first-come first-serve basis, teams are competing in Brine’s annual Bocce Ball tournament, held the third weekend in February. After 24 years, co-owner Gerry Brine has finally worked out all the kinks and is prepared for anything to happen. As of now, nothing has stopped them from hosting the competition, and starting around 4 a.m. on Feb. 20, set up will begin. The event will not come to a complete close until around midnight that day.

The actual game of Bocce Ball is unknown to some, but it involves two teams competing against each other at a time, each team has four green balls and four red balls. The object of the game is to get the teams balls closest to a white ball set at the end of the court, the distance determines the number of points each team receives and the team with the most points wins.

Brine commented on previous years,”It can get pretty competitive but mostly people are just in it for a good time.”Often they have more people looking to experience the good time than they can handle. They accept as many teams as the restaurant-bar combo capacity can reach, beyond that they have to turn down a number of teams each year.

The first thing on the agenda of the day is arranging the courts. Starting early morning, Brine’s brings in sand trucks to fill the six, 13×90 ft. rectangles that closed the street behind the establishment the night before. After laying out piles of sand a small Bobcat comes in to even out the sand. In previous years, they have tried to fill the courts with snow, but considering the different weather possibilities it was unreliable.

Brine said,”It takes a few hours to fill the closures, after that the competition begins almost immediately, it all goes really quick.”

After that teams begin,”It is a double elimination game, so each team gets a second chance to stay in the game,” Brine explained. For the next 12 or so hours the 64 teams, each with four people, will play music, drink, eat and contend to win cash prizes awarded to the top three teams. “It’s a lot of fun, everyone makes friends and it’s just a really great time,” Brine said.

After the competition is over, the next day the boxes are taken apart and the sand is dispersed. “We go through a local company, and when they give us the sand its mixed with salt, so when were finished using it they can take it back to their parking lots to use them to get rid of snow for cars,” but according to him and his co-workers, take down is nothing compared to the previous days activities, Brine said.

Throughout the years, Brine’s has experienced a number of odd things happen while hosting, from blizzards, to heat waves nothing will make them postpone or cancel. They have had people in wedding gowns and teams in coordinating outfits. Brine said, “It’s become something of a tradition for the town and the people.”

Encouraging those not competing to come by and sneak a peek, Brine explained,”It’s a really fun thing to do in the middle of winter when there doesn’t seem to be much to do, and people have fun doing it.”

Open to everyone, a friendly competition will begin and end in the same day, with much to experience in between.