Roque
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roque is an American variant of Croquet game (the name was derived by removing the first and last letters). Roque was an event at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, United States. The American Roque League was founded in 1916. It is played on a rolled sand court with permanently anchored wickets. The mallets with which the ball is struck have a shorter handle (approx. 24 inches) and the ends of the mallet are faced with stone. It is still played at Chautauqua, Illinois, Omaha, Nebraska, Angelica, New York, and Gallup, New Mexico.
Roque, and most particularly the mallet used in the sport, features heavily in Stephen King's novel The Shining. A chapter in John Steinbeck's novel Sweet Thursday also describes a rivalry that arose among the town's residents over the game of roque.
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One of the few remaining active Roque courts in the country is in the small village of Angelica, NY. A tournament is played there every year in August during their "Heritage days" celebration.
