Pichenotte

Pichenotte is the name given to a family of disk-flicking table games that are mostly French Canadian in origin, encompassing crokinole, pitchnut and North American carrom. The word comes from the Canadian French pichenotte, meaning flick, itself derived from the European French pichenette. In these games a player uses a finger to flick a wooden disk across a board, aiming to knock it into a pocket or scoring zone; carrom boards are square with corner pockets, while crokinole boards are round with concentric scoring rings around a central hole. The games are public domain folk pastimes with no controlling patent still in force, though the names Pichenotte and Pitchnut are registered trademarks in the United States. Once concentrated in French-Canadian communities, tournament play has since spread to towns including Tavistock, Ontario, and Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico.