◀ Edito

The coincoin

Are you of the kind that calls their partner “boubou”,” bibou”,” chouchou”, “bb”? (French equivalents of “babe”, “cutie pie”, “cutie cutes” …)\ Are you confused to hear that winning at a drinking game means you don’t drink? Or can you drink alcohol so fast that even the Niagara Falls grow dim? At the LH we have found THE sport made for you: The coin-coin.

The “coin-coin”, or “koin-koin”, or even “le jeu des quatres coins” (game of the four corners) is a team sport. For a game of coin-coin, you’ll need:

• a beer per person
• a cup or a bottle
• a ping pong table
• a table (nicely decorated)
• your brothers and sisters in arms

Arrange your drinks on both side of the table, place the cup/bottle upside down at the center of the table.

One after the other, try to touch the drinks of your opponents by aiming with the ping pong ball. If you succeed, you can drink your beers. The ball usually does an outstanding ricochet. Drink ‘til the moment your opponents deposit the ping pong ball on the central cup/bottle.

Thus, your goal is to finish your beers before your opponents!

The coin-coin plays in two vs two or also three vs three. In fact, as long as there’s room left on the table, you can add more!

Being a drinking game, beware while playing coin-coin, don’t go overboard! Don’t forget that the heads of the bar are more or less the world bosses of coin-coin, so watch out if you defy them.

I tried to lead a real investigation on the origins of the coin-coin. As you can imagine, it’s difficult to find the genius behind the concept.

I followed multiple leads. First searching with the name we all know “coin-coin”. Besides an article from Topito (a french blog well-known for being unserious - check it: it’s good) and a failed Ulule campaign launched by inhabitants of Grenoble: nothing really interesting – except another name of the game “les quatres coins”. The “Four Corners” is a game more or less identical played around the globe. It’s sometimes called the “Four Bangers” and even “Beer Ball”.

This investigation was the occasion to discover the famous ABBA, the American Beer Ball federAtion. They even have a Facebook page (not active anymore). Truthfully you won’t be thrilled about it, that’s for sure. Four or five fellows in a garden around a table with beers. For the average telecommian, that’s just a regular reunion of the bar in the patio.

In the end, my search lead me to what looks like the first ever description of the game of “coin-coin” on the internet: the “Dodge Beer” https://www.brewthis.com/drinking-games/dodge-beer.html

As the website indicates, some guy named Mark shared the game. Well, we can certainly reproach him this completely lousy name, but it is certain that he is the closest you can get to the creator of the game in the eyes of internet. Congratulations Mark, and thanks for everything you’ve done.