The First Prague Bowl

Through the NAF we got in touch at that time with its then president, Torsten. He was interested in whether there was an active Blood Bowl community in the Czech Republic at all – and whether we might want to organize a tournament.

We had already been toying with a similar idea for some time, so the initial impulse came a bit from both sides.

One thing led to another and within a few months it was decided: Prague would have its own Blood Bowl tournament.

One of the Chaos League players, Olaf, had contacts at the school where he taught, and thanks to that we secured a venue. No conference hall or large gaming space. The first Prague Bowl was played simply in school classrooms.

And twenty coaches came.

Roughly half of them were from the local community. The other half, however, arrived from abroad. Torsten came from Germany, along with Claymore and, above all, a fantastic group of players from Poland.

At the very first tournament ever organized, Czechs, Germans and Poles sat across the table from one another.

And that was exactly what foreshadowed what Prague Bowl was meant to become.

Beyond the Borders of Prague

At the same time, we ourselves started heading out.

The first international tournaments came, the first trip to Hungary, and a gradual introduction to the European Blood Bowl scene. The community that just a few years earlier had been searching for more players on Czech forums was slowly becoming part of a much bigger world.

But the real turning point came in 2019.

The core group of people who had once started out together in the Chaos League and stood behind the first Prague Bowl tournaments set off for the NAF World Cup in Dornbirn.

More than thirteen hundred coaches from all over the world gathered there in one place.

Not everything was perfect from an organizational point of view. Right at the start, a several-hour queue awaited. But instead of standing there bored and annoyed, we were in line with players from England and Scotland, drinking, sharing stories, and talking about Blood Bowl.

And they were genuinely happy that Czechs had appeared on the Blood Bowl map as well.

There was even the first talk about how amazing it would be to host EuroBowl in Prague one day...

It was probably Dornbirn that finally showed what is still the best thing about tournament Blood Bowl. The World Cup is not just a huge tournament. Above all, it is a festival and a celebration of the game.

It is not about prize money. It is about a weekend spent with people who share the same peculiar hobby. And about friendships that can grow from a single match at the table and last for many years to come.

Many of the people met there are still part of the same circle to this day.

From a Single Tournament to a Whole Series

Spring Open did not remain the only event for long.

Gradually, more formats were tested and this led to the creation of Quick Snaps – small one-day tournaments with three games. In the most active years, there were five or six of them per year and, together with the larger events, Prague Bowl grew to eight to ten tournaments a year.

Over time, more Blood Bowl variants were added as well: Sevens, Dungeon Bowl and specialised tournaments with their own rules.

What started as a single spring weekend gradually turned into a year-round tournament calendar.

And since organising ten tournaments a year as a one-person hobby is not exactly sensible, Prague Bowl itself gradually changed as well.

Today, the tournaments are no longer run by a single organiser, but by an entire team.

Jarda, a.k.a. Ernedar, took over the oldest Spring Open and began developing it into a two-day team tournament. Tomáš, a.k.a. Coewolf, looks after the Quick Snaps and Vašek, a.k.a. Waschik, focuses on specialised formats including Sevens and Dungeon Bowl.

In the end, one Quick Snap and especially the autumn OgrCubb remained with Grom.

Prague Bowl Today

From a handful of players around a single table, a community has gradually grown that now stands on two main pillars – league play and tournaments.

Chaos League keeps writing its story season after season. Alongside it, various tournament formats are organized throughout the year – from one-day Quick Snaps and classic and team Blood Bowl to Sevens or Dungeon Bowl. Some are more competitive, others are mainly an excuse to spend a day rolling dice in good company.

Over the years, the rules, editions, venues, and people involved in the organization have all changed. One thing, however, has stayed the same:

For this community, Blood Bowl is above all a social game.

Results and trophies are naturally part of it. So is rivalry between teams, statistics, and endless debates about who just got lucky with the dice. In the end, though, the most important things are the people around the table, the stories that emerge during play, and the friendships that often continue long after the final whistle.

Prague Bowl is therefore not a closed club for a few veterans. Anyone who enjoys Blood Bowl belongs here. It does not matter whether there are hundreds of matches and tournaments across Europe in the past, or whether someone is just now thinking about what their first team will be.

Join a tournament, sign up for the league, or simply get in touch on Discord.

The dice will take care of the rest.