When you think about reaching the pinnacle in one's sport, it doesn't take long to link that to the trophy associated with that achievement. In the National Hockey League players yearn for the chance to win the NHL Championship and hoist the Stanley Cup over their shoulders. In the National Football League players dream of reaching the Super Bowl and getting a chance at putting their fingers on the legendary Vince Lombardi trophy. These trophies represent what it means to have become a champion.

Over 20 years ago, Steve Epstein and Roger Sharpe, the founders and then organizers of the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association (PAPA) set out to create such a trophy for the world of competitive pinball. What emerged became known as simpy the "Space Jet", and it was what players battled over during the various PAPA leagues and PAPA World Championships held in the 90's. The last known Space Jet in existence was awarded to Lyman Sheats, following his victory at the PAPA 7 World Pinball Championships back in 2004. What followed was the complete devastation of the PAPA facility due to flooding, and the Space Jet was lost forever . . . until now.

With the help of Mark Steinman from PAPA, some small quantity of Space Jets were recently able to be recovered. Through a gracious donation to the IFPA, we are proud to say that the Space Jet has come home to Epstein and Sharpe. We are also extremely proud to announce that the winner of the upcoming IFPA9 World Pinball Championship will be awarded one of these iconic Space Jet trophies as reward for their achievement of becoming the next IFPA World Pinball Champion.

In addition, through 3D scanning, stereolithography printing technology, and some volunteering hours courtesy of Raw Thrills engineering, the IFPA was able to recreate the iconic Space Jet trophy so it can continue to be produced after the remaining stock of the original Space Jets are exhausted.

Who will be the first player in nearly a decade to hoist the Space Jet above their shoulders? We're 1 month away from finding out.

Special thanks again to PAPA and Raw Thrills for helping make this a reality.

St. Louis Area Pinball concludes their inaugural league! The passionate and dedicated league players brought awareness of competitive pinball to each other and peripheral patrons, spreading pinball enthusiasm and knowledge to all around. Like any great vice, all it takes is that initial introduction and you are hooked-such

is the allure of competitive pinball, and the robust growth of WPPR ranked players (over 13,000 now!) is a perfect testament to the enthralling nature of the sport.

With participation from over 35 players the season provided an amazing opportunity for competitive pinball and generally great times. The large field allowed for full A, B and C divisions, providing tight races for playoff spots and consistently well matched groups. Many games along the way were decided by a single shot, made or missed. Others saw glorious, crushing victories, like getting Mystery Spot and Alien Invasion in a playoff round, or new league highs being set while under pressure of elimination, and of course the antithesis-house balls; all the greatness that is pinball.

Congratulations to all participants who made this a weekly highlight. Shown in the photo is the A division podium: [player]John Miller[/player] 1st (center), [player]Brian Bannon[/player] 2nd (left), [player]Chuck Sanderson[/player] 3rd (right). With ever growing interest and plenty of developing talent, the next season is sure to supply worthy challengers at all levels (like B division winner: [player]Andy Maurer[/player], and C division winner: [player]Alec Gleason[/player]).

Incredible thanks to [player]Joe Schober[/player] and the Free State Pinball Association for their well developed rules, organizational tools, web hosting and stats programming. The access to current standings, player stats, machine stats and other fun accoutrement were an amazing bonus to our first time through, and we benefitted from their tremendous experience and generosity.

Our league was rotated weekly between 3 venues (The Silver Ballroom, 3rd Rail, and CP Pinball) which can boast, in total, around 100 machines! Jet Spin, Frontier, Eight Ball Deluxe, Twilight Zone, Tron LE and AC/DC only begin to allude to the amazing breadth of games accessible for our league play. All three venues are open to the public, machine status is routinely updated on the pinball rebel locator map and all are star attractions on the St. Louis pinball tour (info on each can be easily found online). Look for annual or biannual tournaments at these venues as SLAP continues to grow.

We will be cheering on four of our own as they make the wonderful pilgrimage to PAPA for Pinburgh at the end of the month, and will be rooting for our winner to make another great impression on the IFPA World Pinball Championships in June.

Join your local league or try to start one up. For those already in a league-next meet, stop and observe your surroundings. Reflect on the sights and sounds, stretch your fingers and wrists; enjoy the fact that you are hanging out with the coolest people around. Enough chatter, there is a ball to plunge, “Let’s Go.”

Yahoo! Sports just released an article about competitive pinball, available HERE. Included in the article is the discussion of the nearly 50 IFPA Leagues held around the world, as well as the now over 12,000 players included in the World Pinball Player Rankings. The two World Pinball Championships that the sport has to offer are also discussed (IFPA which will be held in June outside Seattle, and PAPA which will be held in August outside Pittsburgh), as well as the National Pinball Museum which recently moved from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore.

Registration is now closed for IFPA9, and we couldn't be more excited about the field of participants!

12 countries will be represented at the World Championship this year, including the current IFPA World Pinball Champion, [player]Cayle George[/player], current PAPA World Pinball Champion, [player]Andrei Massenkoff[/player], as well as previous IFPA and PAPA World Pinball Champions [player]Keith Elwin[/player], [player]Jorian Engelbrektsson[/player], [player]Daniele Celestino Acciari[/player], [player]Bowen Kerins[/player] and [player]Lyman Sheats[/player]. No tournament in competitive pinball history has featured more World Pinball Champions under one roof, so the competition will be fierce. Will one of these 7 add to their respective legacies, or will a new World Pinball Champion be crowned? This answer will come in a few short months.

The full field of participants is available HERE.

A reminder that there are 1 more spot is still available at the IFPA Satellite Tournament, the 2012 NW Pinball Championship. Full details available HERE.

February 19^th, 2012 – The event was held at Ace’s Breakaway and Play, an arcade at the middle of the city on Smithfield street. In addition to the two AC/DC machines available for play there, Ace’s also features five other pinball machines among its games every day. This weekend it was Family Guy, Avatar, Tron, Batman (Stern), and Transformers. Over 60 people attended the launch party.

The tournament on AC/DC was the main feature of the night. There were 30 competitors and over 70 entries placed. After the dust from qualifying ended, four players remained at the top of the standings. [player]Jon Replogle[/player] (IFPA ranked at 135^th in the world) had the top qualifying score of 181,516,810. Second in qualifying was [player]Pete Hendricks[/player] (148) with a score of 140,711, 840 followed by [player]Cryss Stephens[/player] (234) with 89 million and [player]Al Thomka[/player] (91) with just over 70 million.

The finals were a one game playoff, winner take all. [player]Al Thomka[/player] started off the grouping strong putting up a score of over 50 million on his first ball and really putting the pressure on the rest of the group to perform. In the end [player]Pete Hendricks[/player] captured the win with a score of 92,233,320.

Along with the cash for 1^st place, each of the final four also received entries to the PAPA World Championship (www.papa.org).

Special thanks goes out to Stern Pinball, the IFPA, PAPA, Ace’s Breakaway and Play, Betson Distributing, [player]Doug Polka[/player], [player]Nick Jaquay[/player], [player]Pete Hendricks[/player] and [player]Al Thomka[/player] for their support in running the event.

Pinball's second World Pinball Championship of 2011 was held at the PAPA World Headquarters outside Pittsburgh, PA, August 11th-14th. A record year of participants at PAPA saw just short of 500 players registered to play in the various divisions of competition, including the battle for the coveted title of PAPA World Pinball Champion. After the field was reduced to the final 16 competitors, representing 4 countries, it was long-time competitor [player]Andrei Massenkoff[/player] (right) finally winning the championship after coming so close on several occasions in previous years.

Second place went to [player]Josh Sharpe[/player] (inside left), 3^rd to [player]Cayle George[/player] (inside right), and 4^th to [player]Jim Belsito[/player] (left). This year we saw not 2, but 3 Classics Tournaments held during the weekend, with the respective winners of each being [player]Trent Augenstein[/player], [player]Robert Gagno[/player], and multi-time PAPA Champion [player]Keith Elwin[/player]. The youngest ever Juniors Champion was crowned in first time PAPA attendee [player]Escher Lefkoff[/player]. Seniors winner [player]Dave Hegge[/player] was also this year’s B Division Champion, and [player]Chuck Jackson[/player] was this year's C division winner. Click HERE for more detailed results, and HERE for more details about PAPA's next tournament, Pinburgh 2012 to be held in March 2012.