The second annual International Loren Harris Jai-alai Tournament will be held at the Fronton Salas February 3-5 in Cancun, Mexico.
Under the direction of Maestro Alejandro Diaz Perez, all amateur and professional pelotaris are invited to participate in this huge event. The unfortunate loss of Loren Harris was devastating and still hard to imagine.
The hosts welcome individual players and groups of players for the event.
There will be a $25 entry fee. Singles, Doubles and Team Competition available based on the number of participants.
Please make every effort to attend the event or play in it. Cancun is a great place to have fun and the Salas brothers make it even better. But the focus is to remember the tragic loss of Loren Harris.
Their new fronton is awesome, and the action will be a blast.
As first reported on the Say Hi Li site, the Magic City Casino is getting sold.
Rumors of a sale of the valuable casino have been floating around for several months but was recently confirmed by Stu Neiman.
“While a change in the ownership of Magic City Casino may be taking place, there will be no change in the ownership of Magic City Jai-alai. The same ownership group which founded the program in 2018 will continue to operate the program with expansion in 2023.
That’s great news!
While rumors of the potential sale turned out to be correct, the immediate demise of jai-alai will not happen. There will be a 6th season, and as previously reported, a longer season with an increased roster.
Scott “The Savior” Savin will be heavily involved in the Magic City jai-alai operations, but his status as for the casino operations is unknown.
Magic City Casino is now the busiest casino of the pari-mutuels that include Gulfstream, Big Easy (Mardi Gras), the Isle in Pompano, Calder, Miami, Hialeah Park, and Dania based on the past couple of reporting months.
They were the only racino reach ten figures with a reported slots net revenue in July 2022 of $10,635,062. For years, The Isle in Pompano had been the leader, but revenue as sagged a bit since the pandemic and hasn’t quite fully caught backup yet.
Magic City just completed its 5th season this past weekend and will be opening earlier than before – next February with the season length getting expended to mid-December. However, they will close the month of August to hold the USNJAC and the Word Super Cup tournaments.
With Dania jai-alai making a surprising reopening in just a matter of days away, management and fans are optimistic that the 69-year-old Dania fronton can make a comeback.
The season will be in a tournament form and operating during the months of December and January. Parimutuel wagering will be available for all performances.
The players will be reporting this weekend, mostly young kids as young as 18 years old from the Basque region. About 6 players from the original roster will be back along with 16 new players.
One big note is that there will be a significant improvement to their old “1980s” broadcasting equipment. We have already witnessed new video production of the new roster and a spot where Benny interviews Benny, seen on our site and Dania’s YouTube Channel.
There will be a lot of photo and video shoots taken and available on their social media sites when the players arrive.
Opening Night
Thursday, December 1st 7PM. A special “Merry Festival” with an opening ceremony in the works.
The Pelota Press will be there the first few days covering the event.
A huge jai-alai reunion was recently held in Markina-Xemein, which is in the Basque region of northern Spain.
A total of 92 jai-alai players were in attendance. Some of the names and faces we were able to notice included Bolivar, Echevea, Gorostola, Salazar and Tello.
If there were any kind of a Board of Directors table for the sport of jai-alai, there is certainly one name that that would be sitting up there in the front of it. That would be Francisco Eloririaga, better known as to most fans as “Elorri”. On Saturday morning, Elorri made his debut at America’s first public cancha in St. Petersburg.
As part of the “Orlando Invasion” lead by long time pro player Rastock, Elorri showed up at Puryear Park in a three-car caravan to the surprise of about ten regulars for a regular Saturday session. Looking healthy, tanned, and relaxed, the 82-year was a fixture at Orlando Jai-alai. As a former player from day 1 in 1962 to all the way to 2013 as player manager, Elorri was beloved by everyone.
He can still throw the ball around – 60 years after playing he started playing pro!
The marketing crew at Dania are getting creative as the launch a return to jai-alai this year. Without further ado, check out this new YouTube video on the format coming up for the upcoming season.
Dania Jai-alai has finally revealed their roster for the upcoming two-month season that opens December 1st. The delayed announcement might have been the result of delays on producing this new slick promo video they made – introducing the 22-man roster in grand style. Yep, fake news.
The highly anticipated news has jai-alai fans optimistic of a fantastic season as they are reopening the fronton with live parimutuel wagering following what appeared to be the end of “goat skin” jai-alai. And the end of Dania jai-alai after nearly 70-years of operation.
As expected, the roster is loaded with new players from the Basque/Spain/French region with some as young as 18 years old. About 2/3 of the roster are the new young players that will be competing against some “seasoned veterans” that are coming back, making for some interesting games.
The video announcement, a slick 2:20 long one, is new for Dania jai-alai, something Magic City has been doing for five years. Will there be an enhanced video production to watch the games? Will jai-alai there return after this 2-month season? Are they holding the season because the State is requiring them to host the performances because the decoupling deal was thrown out along with sports betting? We shall find out………
Again, the opening day is Thursday, December 1st, and festivities (A Merry Festival?) are being planned for opening day. The Pelota Press will be there with extensive coverage and hope to see a packed house that night.
Part two of the Tampa Bay vs. N. Miami Amateur Tournament was held at Luis’s cancha this past weekend. Special thanks to our South Florida correspondent, Jesus Olivera, for supplying the details and photos.
Several Tampa Bay players were unable to attend due to the hurricane that was heading that way earlier and players needed to prepare, so the format of the two cities vs. each other was pretty much scrapped. The storm eventually turned and clobbered the Ft. Myers/Sanibel Beach area, but that didn’t stop a great tournament from still taking place.
The two-day tournament with Group 1 players and Group 2 payers each with 5 teams and competing 5 games played to 8 points on Saturday, October 8th. The top three players from each group would play on the Sunday Finals.
The Group 1 players in the front were Scott Burat, Caby, Geroge San Jaun, Peer and Belota. In the back were Norge, Michael Richards (Taza) , Dave and Henry.
The Group 2 players in the front were Jose, Jay Herrera (Rubio), Jerry, Peugeot and Ivan. In the back were Bob, Corky, Joe P, George Z and Jesus Olivera.
Advancing to the finals for the 6-team game, six games to 8 points with fronts staying the poste picked by drawings numbers before the game and back rotating, were in the front – Caby, San Juan, Rubio, Belota, Peugeot and Henry. IN the back were Corky, Jules, Joe P, Henry, Norge and Jesus.
The winners of the finals would then play a Partido to 15 points for the trophies.
Jay Herrera (Rubio) was the winner in the front and teamed with Norge who won the back and played the Partido against the players that got 2nd place. Peugeot in the front and Corky in the back. Rubio and Norge won 15-12.
Jose and Mike (Taza) won a consultation quinella to 11 points. All the players that didn’t make it to the finals played a consolation quiniela.
Jesus reported that it was immense fun with Norge a vacuum cleaner, catching machine. He also remarked that he had an awesome experience to play against Corky, the former Tampa Jai-alai star player. He made incredible catches and threw BULLETS, some nearly “killing” him! .
Danai Jai-alai will reopen December 1st with a roster of 22 players.
The announcement of the players will be released by the Dania marketing team this Monday with additional details coming later in the week.
We can tell you a few things without disrupting their announcements next week:
There will be a couple surprises, but there is only one guy on the roster over 40 with everybody else in their 20s and early 30s. Tevin, who is now 50 and rumored to return is false. It’s pretty obvious were the majority of the players are coming from.
All the agreements have been signed and the administrative stuff has been taken care of. With all the “i’s” doted and the “t”s crossed, they are ready to go for a two-month season. Good old-fashioned jai-alai returns with goat skin rapped pelota’s and granite walls.
Try to support them, a successful run will lead to more jai-alai in the future.
Keep an eye on this site and Dania’s social media starting Monday for the latest details.
