American Doinkball is a Crokinole variant. It adds length and strategy to the game by making the board’s edge a penalty scoring area and by returning non-scoring buttons to their players to play again in subsequent turns.

Rule Changes

  • Buttons that come to rest on the edge of the board—either on the outer line or between the outer line and the ditch—are “doinked.” Doinked buttons are removed from play and scored as 10 points for the opposite-color player.
  • Buttons that aren’t doinked and would normally end up in the ditch are returned to their players as available to be replayed in subsequent turns. This includes buttons that fail to connect with an opponent’s button, come to rest “outside of the house” when playing to the center, or come to rest in the ditch or off the board.
  • The game ends and scoring begins when a player ends their turn with no buttons available to shoot in subsequent turns.
  • In games where players are on a team, consider buttons to be available to any member of the team.

Notes

  • About the name: At our house we call twenties “dinks.” When we introduced our friends to Crokinole one of them asked, “what’s this called again? Canadian Dinkball?”
  • Tip: We put our opponent’s doinks on the rail next to our own dinks.