With hundreds of total participants and dozens of professional foosballers in attendance, the Schell’s Foosball Experience on Friday and Saturday at Schell’s Brewery was popular with the attendants.

Prominent among those at the tournament was Tommy Adkisson, a four-time world champion of the sport. Adkisson won the Open Singles tournament in 1993 and 1997 and was a part of the winning Open Doubles tournament teams in 1993 and 1996.

Adkisson heard of the tournament while traveling through the city.

“We came up here to pick up another friend of mine … and we just happened to hear about this tournament on the way back,” he said. “So we stopped in.”

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Professional foosball players battle during the Bring-Your-Partner tournament Saturday at Schell’s Brewery.

Adkisson said he first got into professional foosball while playing other sports in elementary school.

“I played point guard at school,” he said. “I played basketball at the rec center, that’s where I started playing foosball. I was 8 or 9 years old, and I found a place that had tournaments, and the rest is history. I wrestled, played basketball, played football. But foosball was something that I found that was relaxing, that I loved, that wasn’t competitive. I did it my own way. I didn’t do it competitively, but I became very good at it.”

Adkisson said that he wasn’t too worried about winning anything at the New Ulm Tournament.

“Either way, I’m going to have fun, no matter what,” he said.

Doug Rengel of St. Cloud, Minnesota, was another professional foosballer in attendance.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Milo Barth (left) and Scott Lechband (right) team up for a game of foosball Saturday at Schell’s Brewery. Lechband met Barth and his family at the New Ulm Best Western Plus and invited him to the Schell’s Foosball Experience.

“It’s well run, good event,” Rengel said. “They’re talking about some regular events here and it’s great. It’s a good place, I like it. I feel like I’m right out in the wilderness here. It’s nice.”

Rengel has been playing foosball professionally since 1979 and has been playing off and on ever since.

Tristan Hsu, a 12-year veteran of professional foosball, came from Woodbury, Minnesota, for the event. He heard of the tournament through the Minnesota Foosball Facebook group, where it was being promoted by event organizer Josh Sarpy.

“Josh has been doing a fantastic job advertising this though social media,” Hsu said. “We have a monthly tournament up in the cities … and that was one of the ways he was promoting. And Schell’s is a part of us really starting to promote the Minnesota State Foosball Tournament, which we’re having in May. So that’s part of the big draw of this tournament.”

Both Rengel and Hsu emphatically said they would be interested in any future foosball events in New Ulm.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Four-time world champion Tommy Adkisson prepares for a round of the Bring-Your-Partner foosball tournament Saturday at Schell’s Brewery.

For Friday’s Draw-Your-Partner round, Mike Brazil and Scott Lechband split first place with Eric Balcos and Jeff Snider, while Brad Donas and Cora Hamann placed third. For Saturday’s Bring-Your-Partner event, Chad Krinkie and Luke Brinkman won the top spot, while Tom Hoffstead and Steve Moss took second place and Balcos and Nate Olson placed third. For the Monster event, in which 44 participants competed on Saturday, Tony Sorum and Brazil took first, while Hsu and Terry Simcox took second and third place was Steven Schmall and Balcos. For the final monster draw on Saturday, Balcos took first place, while Jordan Peterson took second and Adkisson placed third.

The event continued on Sunday at Schell’s Brewery with pick-up games, Beat-the-Pro challenges and more Draw-Your-Partner contests.