Review: The Best of Sport and Leisure board game

We were sent The Best of Sport and Leisure for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

I was chatting to someone this week about board games, and how as a family we’d fallen back in love with board games during the pandemic. Lockdown had made us dig out the board games and reacquaint ourselves with the rules of all kinds of games which had been gathering dust for years. We’ve also added some new ones to our collection, like The Best of Sport and Leisure, where the questions are all about sport; everything from football to fishing, badminton to basketball, and walking to weightlifting.

Review: The Best of Sport and Leisure board game

The Best of Sport and Leisure is the latest game release from the LOGO family. Question cards are divided into the famous LOGO favourites; Picture cards, Theme cards and Potluck cards. There are questions even people who don’t really love sports (me, this is me) can answer.

The questions aren’t generally about who won a race in 1922 or who scored the winning goal in the 1966 World Cup Final; it’s all the things you pick up without even knowing it, like “Which ex-England footballer has the name of a borough of New York City tattooed across his lower back”. So it’s a fun game to play, even if you’re not a sports-super fan!

Review: The Best of Sport and Leisure board game

The box contains –

  • 252 Question Cards
  • 12 Action Cards
  • Playing Board
  • 2 Playing Pieces
  • Instructions

Ideally you need two teams for this, with at least two people per team. It’s aimed at people aged 12+ and the rules are pretty simple to pick up. Two teams race to the finish, answering questions along the way. There are three kinds of question cards (each card has four questions on), pot luck, picture cards and common theme cards.

Review: The Best of Sport and Leisure board game

To keep everyone on their toes, there are six different kinds of action cards. These are mostly used to disrupt play and throw your rival team off their game. Each team takes turns in being the Question Master; it’s a fun, fairly fast-paced game which really gets your brain working.

I think the more people on your team, the better. It is pretty simple to pick up and if you have a mixed age team, then your chances of winning are probably higher. Despite it being all about sport, my team did pretty well answering the questions; because it’s not so much about remembering facts and figures, but more general stuff. I was surprised at how many questions I knew the answers to, and I did wonder how I’d managed to remember so much info about surfing, for example.

Review: The Best of Sport and Leisure board game

The Best of Sport and Leisure is made by Drummond Park for Tomy and costs around £24.99. I spotted it on Amazon, but it is widely available in toy shops and larger retailers.

Manchester Storm – fantastic family fun!

We’ve been busy over the Christmas break, doing nice things as a family, day trips and so forth. But on New Years Day we took the boy to see his first ever ice hockey game at the Altrincham Ice Dome near our home in Manchester. The Ice Dome is home to English Ice Hockey legends and recently resurrected team, Manchester Storm.

Hubs and I used to be season ticket holders of the old team when they played at what was the MEN Arena in Manchester. We started watching them play in maybe 1998 and attended every home game and some away games until the team folded in 2002. We loved Manchester Storm and we were incredibly sad when they ceased to be.

Manchester Storm
His first hot dog at the storm shelter!

Ice hockey is a good sport to go and watch with your family; the rules are reasonably easy to pick up, there’s lots of family entertainment and singing and dancing in your seat, and there’s virtually no bad language or things you don’t want your kids to hear. Plus the teams are usually fairly accessible, so it’s not hard to meet your ice hockey hero.

 Manchester Storm are part of the Elite Ice Hockey League, which includes 10 teams from across the UK. Players are typically a mix of home-grown talent and players from Canada, USA and Europe. 

The Altrincham Ice Dome seats (I’m told) 2000 people and on New Years Day Manchester Storm were playing their old rivals Sheffield Steelers. The Ice Dome was packed with fans, luckily we were early in and managed to bag some pretty good seats. 

With three 20 minute periods (with frequent stoppages) and two 15 minute intervals we were treated to nearly 3 hours of entertainment, the adult tickets were £15 and a kids ticket was £7. It was cold, I’d forgotten how cold an ice hockey rink could be, I spied a few people with blankets over their knees, thankfully we’d wrapped up warm, so once it began we soon thawed out, especially with all the singing, dancing and clapping we did.

It was a tense match, the Storm who were short benched that night were on the back foot from the start, but managed to take an early lead. The atmosphere was electric and the lively teams scrapped for the lead throughout, at one point Manchester Storm were 4-1 up, but The Steelers, never ones to take anything lying down pulled something out of the bag in the third period which ended at a heart-stopping 4-4. Five minutes extra time was added and regrettably Sheffield managed to score, meaning they went home with 2 points and we went home with nothing but smiles and good memories.

It’s never fun to lose, but having not attended an ice hockey game for maybe 13 or 14 years it was so good to be back. Manchester Storm are in my heart, I knew all the songs and the chants and it’s in my blood again. You don’t mind losing so much if your team play with heart, and Manchester Storm have always had that in spades. 

It’s a good family trip out and about a hundred times cheaper than going to the football or similar, and there’s something nice about being part of a family of fans. If you do go make sure you wrap up warm and don’t forget your singing voice. See you there?

Manchester Storm