Canadian Toys and Games From the '90s That Deserve a Comeback
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There is a specific kind of nostalgia reserved for the toys and games of Canadian childhood in the '90s. Not just for the objects themselves — though the objects were great — but for the time of them. The rules that varied by neighbourhood. The schoolyard economy built on small plastic discs. The fact that a game involving a rubber ball and someone's driveway could occupy an entire afternoon.
Some of these were invented in Canada. Some were invented elsewhere and claimed by us through sheer cultural force of will. All of them deserve to come back. Here is the case for each one. 🍁
Crokinole 🎯
Crokinole is a Canadian original and one of the great underappreciated board games in the world. Players take turns flicking small wooden discs across a circular wooden board, trying to land them in the centre hole while knocking opponents' pieces out of scoring position. It is part shuffleboard, part curling, part pinball, and entirely satisfying.
It was developed in Ontario in the late 1800s and has been made by Canadian craftspeople ever since. Crokinole boards are heirloom objects — hand-finished, expensive, and built to be passed down through families, which is exactly the kind of thing a game this good deserves.
The reason it hasn't broken through internationally is simply that nobody has properly explained it to people outside Canada yet. Every person who plays Crokinole for the first time becomes immediately and vocally enthusiastic about Crokinole. This is consistent and universal. The game deserves a moment and it has not had one yet. Put it in a Netflix show. Put it everywhere. 🎯
Balderdash 📝
Invented in Toronto in 1984 by Laura Robinson and Paul Toyne, Balderdash has sold over fifteen million copies and is one of the most genuinely clever party games ever made. Players are given an obscure word, name, acronym, or film title and must write a convincing fake definition. Everyone reads their definition aloud. Points go to the person who either guesses the real answer or fools the most people with their fake one.
What Balderdash rewards, more than any other game, is the specific skill of sounding plausible. It turns out some people are extraordinary at this and some people are terrible at it, and discovering which category your friends fall into is genuinely delightful.
It had a TV show briefly in 2004. It should have a TV show now. Every dinner party with the right people eventually becomes Balderdash anyway. 📖
POGs 🥛
POGs were not Canadian in origin — they came from Hawaii via a Canadian bottle cap manufacturer that produced the lids — but they were Canadian in spirit. Every schoolyard in Canada in the mid-'90s ran on POGs. The slammer economy. The graphic designs you collected for no reason except that you needed them. The competitive pile-flipping that various school boards decided was essentially gambling and banned accordingly.
Being banned by the school board is, historically, the mark of a truly excellent playground game. POGs had that in the '90s. They were outlawed in some places for being disruptive and for resembling gambling, which only made them more desirable.
They have technically never gone away — you can find them — but they have lost the cultural infrastructure that made them matter. That infrastructure was the schoolyard itself, the trading and the competition and the specific thrill of owning a holographic slammer. It can't entirely be replicated. But someone should try. ✨
Table Hockey 🏒
The table hockey game — a mechanical board with small metal or plastic players on rods that pivot and slide — was developed in Canada in the 1930s. Specifically, Eagle Toy Company in Montreal and Donald Munro of Toronto both produced iconic versions that Canadian families bought in enormous numbers, particularly after NHL games started being televised.
A good table hockey game is still out there if you look for it. It is, without question, the correct Christmas gift for someone who loves hockey and has no idea that table hockey is what they want. The clicking of the rods. The miniature goalies. The way every game ends with someone accusing someone else of spinning, which is against the rules. This is an extremely Canadian experience and it deserves more shelf space. 🇨🇦
Road Hockey 🏒
Not a product. A tradition. A cultural institution.
Road hockey in Canada in the '90s required: a tennis ball or a street hockey ball, sticks of varying quality, two nets or two piles of jackets, and a willingness to yell "CAR!" every four minutes and drag the nets out of the way.
The rules varied entirely by neighbourhood. The teams were whoever was available. The game went until it was dark or until someone's mom called them in. There was no referee. Disputes were resolved through argument, which is how Canadian children learned to negotiate.
Road hockey has declined as traffic has increased and as screens have competed more effectively for time. This is a genuine cultural loss. Every Canadian who played road hockey in the '90s will tell you the same thing: it was the best. The simplest, most democratic, most genuinely fun version of hockey that has ever existed. You didn't need ice. You didn't need equipment budgets. You needed a ball and a stick and a driveway and the afternoon. 🌅
Five-Pin Bowling 🎳
Five-pin bowling was invented in Canada — specifically in Toronto in 1909 by Tommy Ryan — and is bowled almost exclusively in Canada, which makes it one of the most specifically Canadian activities that exists.
The balls are small enough to hold in one hand. The pins are smaller than ten-pin pins. The scoring is different and involves something called a "dead ball" that takes a while to explain. This is all fine. Five-pin bowling at a '90s Canadian birthday party, wearing rented shoes that someone else's feet were in, with a ball that was always slightly too heavy or too light, is a formative experience that deserves its place in the cultural record.
Five-pin is hanging on but has declined significantly since its peak. The dedicated five-pin lanes are disappearing. This is a shame and someone should do something about it. 🎳
Spin Master Toys (The Early Years) 🎰
Spin Master was founded in Toronto in 1994 and is now one of the largest toy companies in the world. In the '90s, they were making the kinds of toys that became immediately iconic: Earth Buddy (a pantyhose head that grew grass hair), the Hover Pod, and later Bakugan, which became one of the best-selling toys on earth.
Earth Buddy specifically deserves acknowledgement. It was a nylon stocking filled with sawdust and grass seed, shaped vaguely like a head, that you watered and watched sprout. It was Canadian, it was weird, it was excellent, and it prefigured the entire modern houseplant era by about twenty-five years. Earth Buddy was ahead of its time. 🌱
The Specific Joy of Playing Outside Until Dark
This is not a toy. It is a category of experience.
Canadian children in the '90s spent more time outside than any subsequent generation, and a significant portion of that time was spent in unstructured games that had rules nobody had officially written down. Ghost in the Graveyard. Kick the Can. British Bulldogs, which was eventually banned from most schoolyards for being too physical but produced extremely durable children. Manhunt. Red Light Green Light before it had any other cultural associations.
These games were free. They required nothing except other children and enough space. They ended when it got dark or when someone's parent appeared on the porch. The specific quality of that outdoor twilight, the last few minutes before the streetlights came on and everyone had to go inside, is something no game console has ever replicated and probably never will. 🌙
What We're Really Talking About
The toys and games of Canadian childhood in the '90s were, taken individually, mostly fine. What made them extraordinary was the context around them: the neighbourhood, the recess, the birthday party at the five-pin alley, the road hockey game that went past dark because nobody wanted to stop.
That context can't be bought or reissued. But the objects can come back, and some of them should. Bring back Crokinole. Bring back Balderdash at every dinner party. Find a five-pin alley and bowl there before it closes.
The games were good. The time around them was even better. 🍁
Designed in Ontario, deep in Canadian nostalgia — shop the collection at paigepoutine.com 🦊