Clintonville Mayor Takes on Heyball

Some may know him in the town of Clintonville as its mayor, since being elected in 2022, or as a local businessman with his company Against the Grain Scrollsaw Art, or even as an outdoorsman who fished on the national bass fishing tour, manufactured musky lures, and hosted The Sportsman’s Spotlight.

Many who know him also know that he was born with Cerebral Palsy, and he has used crutches and a wheelchair to get around in his lifetime. What some may not know about Mayor Steve Kettenhoven is his competitive desire.

Competing in fishing tournaments, trap shooting, and the Paralympic Curling trials, Steve, who has also competed in pool throughout the years, has picked up a new game as he participated in his first Heyball tourney in Los Angeles in December.

“I got started with it last year. They had the first event in Los Angeles, with 140 athletes from 27 different countries. There were 67 in the wheelchair division, and 73 in the amputee division.” Kettenhoven said of his experience in heyball competition so far,” it was unique, seeing all the athletes from different countries, Australia, Ukraine, Japan, you know, just all over and getting to know them was a great experience in itself too I did fairly well when I was in LA, but Australia was a different beast.”

“So, heyball is a lot like our eight ball, and the game was developed in China. It’s played on nine-foot tables instead of seven-foot tables like we have here.” Kettenhoven goes on to say, “The pockets are smaller and rather than the rails that typically slant in toward a pocket here, over there the pockets are rounded on the pockets, which makes them a little tighter, also, it creates almost like a bumper pool, so if you’re not very accurate with your shot, it will hit that rounded area and just bounce or, sit there. So it makes it challenging, especially since we don’t have any heyball tables here.”

With limited opportunities to play heyball in the area and no regulation tables to be found, Steve, an avid player of standard billiards, found he needed to adjust to the new game.

“Having a table would help a little bit as far as getting used to the different angles and the different banks of a longer table; you have to focus to try and find the center of that pocket.”

The company Joy Billiards, based in China, is organizing heyball competitions to expand on a global scale.

“The reason they’re doing this is they’re trying to get this sport into the Paralympics. That’s why they hosted the first event out in LA last year, and are going to try and do this yearly until they can get it into the Paralympics, which they’re shooting for 2032, but there’s a lot of hoops to jump through to get to the Paralympics.”

To compete outside the country, Steve needed his paperwork to travel to Australia in June to compete in the WPA Heyball Parasport World Championships.

“I had to get all my documentation put together, go to Shawano and apply for the passport, and I had to expedite things, which cost quite a bit, but I was able to get that once I had the passport. Then I could applied to the Australian government for the Visa it had to put a lot of documentation together for the World Pool Players Association, they required a lot of documentation as far as any type of medical condition you have, or any pills you take, because if they happen to do a drug test, and you have something in you and you won, you could lose your title. Once I had all that, then I had to wait; everyone had to wait for word from the WPA and the BCA on whether you were accepted or not. Once you were, then you could make your flight arrangement, so when we went to LA, everything was taken care of by Joy.”

Once in Brisbane, Australia, it was time for Steve to compete as well as get acclimated with his surroundings.” They did the draw after we were done practicing, and I drew the number two wheelchair shooter in the world, and he happened to be from China. A very good shot, and it was a pretty one-sided match, let’s put it that way.”

Plenty of experience was gained in that first match for Kettenhoven as he went forward in the tournament.

“I learned a lot, just watching him. The next day, I had to face another competitor from China. I found out that morning from my son that I was going to be on the TV table, so that put a little more pressure on, of course, but you don’t notice the cameras around.”

Steve didn’t let any pressure get to him in the next round as the match went back and forth.

“What they do is it’s a race to 5, or an hour and 40 minutes, whichever comes first and um up, and that match went to the hour and 40 minutes, and we were tied at 2 to 2, and then we went to a shootout, and what they do is they put the eight ball on the dock where they would or you would have the rack, the balls, the cue ball is in the kitchen, basically, both balls are straight on from one another in the middle of the table.”

Extra time was needed to see who would move on.

“You have five shots, you alternate, he goes first I go second, back-and-forth, and whoever is leading after the five shots wins the match,  so then it went to sudden death, and sudden death is, if he makes it and I don’t the match is over, and he did, and I didn’t, so that ended the tournament for me.”

With the hopes of the game becoming more popular and the potential for heyball tables to be available locally between now and when they will have heyball in the Paralympics, Steve wants to keep competing.

“I love shooting our eight ball here, I love shooting our nine ball here, Since we’re only in 2025, right now, I’m hoping that this will catch on more, and that we’ll see more tables, it’s been brought here and hopefully we can get a pool hall in Green Bay, or Appleton, that would at least get one table. To practice on that’d be great.”