When American pool hero Shane Van Boening steps into the playing arena in the Palms Ballroom at the Caribe Royal Resort in Orlando, Sat., Nov. 30, he will do so not only as a newly minted Billiard Congress of America Hall of Famer.
As he is announced for Team USA at the start of Mosconi Cup XXXI, the “South Dakota Kid” will officially become the all-time leader in Cup appearances with 18, moving him ahead of longtime teammate Johnny Archer and Team Europe legend Ralf Souquet of Germany.
Equally impressive, Van Boening’s Team USA run is consecutive years, starting in 2007 when he was just 23.
“I remember that first Mosconi Cup,” Van Boening said recently. “It was in Las Vegas, and I remember that everybody talked about the Mosconi Cup. I really liked the atmosphere. It was different than other tournaments. Even though we lost, I knew I wanted to be in more Mosconi Cups.”
Team USA did, indeed, lose to Team Europe at the MGM Grand that year, although Van Boening did win three of his five matches. Unbeknownst to Van Boening, however, was that the European squad’s 2007 win would prove to be the launch pad for decade of dominance for Team Europe.
With the talent pool in Europe seemingly compounding every year, however, Team Europe would go on to win nine of the next 10 Cups. And that lone Team USA win? It came at that same MGM Grand venue in Las Vegas in 2009, with none other than Van Boening depositing the match-clinching 9 ball.
“It was a lot of fun when we won in 2009,” Van Boening recalled. “I thought it would be like that every year.”
Over the next eight years, the gap in talent between the once-dominant Americans and the hungry Europeans grew every larger. The one constant for Team USA, however, was Van Boening, for more than a decade clearly the top player in the U.S., and annually considered among the top five in the world. Due to that standing, it was always Van Boening who had to face the top players on Team Europe, and it was Van Boening’s shoulders on which Team USA’s chances rested.
“The eight years in a row that we lost were brutal,” Van Boening admitted. “But the game changed because the Europeans got better. That’s what I learned through the Mosconi Cup. The Europeans just kept getting better.”
But Van Boening, with teammate and eventual MVP Skyler Woodward, ended that drought in spectacular fashion in 2018, with the American legend authoring the finishing touch with what he still calls “the biggest pressure shot of my career.”
Van Boening’s table-length 1-9 combination against Team Europe’s Alex Kazakis gave Team USA an 11-9 win in the hostile environs of London’s Alexandra Palace, and sent shockwaves through the pool world, giving both American players and fans hope that the tide was shifting.
Team USA would go on to repeat the feat in 2019, topping the vaunted Europeans for a second straight year at Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas — Van Boening and Woodward once again carrying the load for Team USA.
“Those were exciting years,” Van Boening said. “We were at our best the years that Johan (Ruysink) was the captain.”
Despite Team USA’s current four-year losing streak, Van Boening is filled with optimism ahead of the 2024 Mosconi Cup.
“I have confidence that we can win this year and gain some momentum,” Van Boening said. “Things are starting to get better now. We’re stronger now with me, Sky and Fedor (Gorst). And the event keeps getting better, and that’s making the American players want to play better.”
With Woodward traditionally being at his best in Mosconi Cup play, and reigning World Pool Champion Gorst now firmel draped in red, white and blue, Team USA boasts a top three that can compete on equal footing with any threesome Team Europe can muster. The addition in 2024 of Cup veterans Tyler Styer and explosive Billy Thorpe, and the promise of wildly partisan crowd in the Palms Ballroom certainly offer reason for hope and optimism. It would be fitting tribute to Van Boening on the weekend of his induction into the BCA Hall of Fame for 20 years of playing brilliance.
And just how much longer will Captain America, now 41 but still a threat to win any event in which he’s entered, lead the red, white and blue into Mosconi Cup arena?
“I think I’d like to reach 20 Mosconi Cups,” Van Boening said. “Then, that will be it.”
– Mike Panozzo, Author
