Resources on Game Room Game Tables

The Austin Air Hockey Association
This site is aimed primarily at serious air hockey players in the Austin area. Obviously Austin takes its air hockey seriously, and if air hockey is important to you then you will be interested in the player profiles, the extensive list of local tournaments, photos of local players and tournament play, and a list of virtually every place in Austin where you can play air hockey. Additionally this site contains a list of national air hockey resources and a list of links to other air hockey sites around the world. You can also join their mailing list for free. If you're an "air head", especially a fan who lives in the Austin area, then this is a site you'll want to visit often.

Playing Pool
Site features pool information including billiards news, pool downloads, RSB Rogues gallery, pool hall websites, billiard links, fargo tournaments, downloads, a pool store, pool classifieds, pool tournament finder, pool hall finder, a pool tournament manager, amateur physics for the amateur pool player, a top 10 section and more. Up to date pool news is featured, as are pool opportunities.

Table Tennis History
Table Tennis is believed to have begun in England during the 12th century as a spin-off of "Royal Tennis" and was popular as a parlor game in Victorian homes. Equipment was made from various homemade articles, such as cardboard for rackets, books as nets and the ball was usually a ball of string. Plastic balls were introduced to the game after an Englishman named James Gibb, visited America and discovered children playing with small plastic toy balls. He brought some back to England and used the plastic balls for table tennis. To his surprise, it gave an unexpected, overwhelming boost to this already popular game. After years of being called Gossima, Film-Flam and Whiff-Whaff, the name "Ping Pong" was finally adopted as a trade name by Parker Brothers because of the new sound these plastic balls made when they hit the table and the racket.

Ping Pong Book
Author Jerome Charyn chronicles the history of ping pong through an inside view of the people who love to play it in Sizzling Chops & Devilish Spins. While many have played a casual game of ping pong now and then, still more take the game very seriously. Charyn describes his own passion for the game in the United States and France as well as detailing the lives and playing styles of ping pong stars such as Marty Reisman and Dick Miles. He moves fluidly back and forth through time to describe competitions past and present, chart the careers of major players and portray the passion for the sport in the rest of the world. This website has a detailed review of the ping pong book.