Jock Itch Ping-pong phenomenon

The city’s leading authority on the Denver Nuggets—Andrew Feinstein, the main man behind DenverStiffs.com—apparently took one look at the NBA lockout and knew he required something to fill the void the imminent lack of basketball is about to leave. To fill it, he traded in the large, orange ball for a small, white one and brought us Denver’s newest sensation: Smash!, the city’s biggest (only?) weekly ping-pong party.

Ping-pong, or table tennis, is something most of us have played at some point, but it doesn’t infringe on the domain that pool or pinball enjoys in your average drinking establishment. Feinstein, managing partner of Exdo (the venue where Smash is held) and table-tennis enthusiast, aims to change that. “Denver doesn’t have an upscale ping-pong club and with the weather turning cold soon, we figured that the kickballers, softballers, cruisers, and so on would need something fun and moderately athletic to do on a weeknight,” he explains.

Table tennis as a sport has been around since the late 1880s and enjoyed widespread popularity in the U.S. about 100 years later in the swinging 1970s. Richard Nixon used ping-pong to melt the icy relations between our country and China when the U.S. table tennis team traveled there in 1971. Feinstein seems to think its popularity is on the rise. “There is definitely a national trend towards ping pong becoming popular again among adults,” he says. But the real question is whether the hardcore insist on calling it table tennis. “Not at all,” he says. “We’ve seen a wide mix of players ranging from people who can barely hold the racket to former professional players from around the globe. We actually have former pros on staff to give lessons and tips to our recreational players.”

Usually a sport will gain in popularity and a bad movie will be made about it, driving it further into obscurity. But it seems the opposite has happened for table tennis. Despite the existence of Balls Of Fury, the sport has weathered the storm and is now enjoying a resurgence from people looking for a semi-athletic way to spend a night indoors (well, one that doesn’t involve getting stoned and playing Wii). Despite the emphasis on it being a social gathering, Feinstein figures you can flex your ping-pong muscles at Smash! as well. “It’s very social,” he says. “But we’ll implement a tournament system on selected tables soon for players of all skill levels.”

While smacking that other little white ball around can cost a lot of money and requires you to wear goofy clothes, Smash! is an affordable night out. You may even break a sweat. Or not. (That’s up to you.) Smash! offers unlimited play for $5 (21+) and $10 (18- to 20-year-olds). You can also reserve a table for $10 an hour if you really want to settle in and figure out if you are a penhold or shakehand grip kind of girl or guy. It’s an 18 and older event, but the venue does serve booze, and there’s a glow-in-the-dark beer pong table if you’re so inclined. Then again, ping-pong is a game of quick reflexes, so you may want to lay off the sauce if you’re serious about your table tennis. Nixon would approve.