Building on the momentum of early 2026

We're coming up on an even one-third of the way through the calendar year 2026, and we've got a moment right now to stop and reflect on the year of CoCo tournaments we've run so far.

We've already got 11 events in the books since the start of the new year - not too shabby for a ragtag little Scrabble organization like ours. Of course, when you take a closer look under the hood, you notice a trend - 9 of those 11 tournaments have been run by the same 3 directing teams in the same 3 metro areas. The vast majority of our events this year have been within a stone's throw of Boston; Washington, DC; or Portland, Oregon.

To some, this might look a bit funny. But from my vantage point, honestly: It's a feature, not a bug! What it means is that we've got small pockets of North America where enthusiasm for our events is running especially high. And as we go about the business of organizing a community of Scrabblers at the grassroots level, it has to begin in these hotbed areas where there's a good critical mass of people to organize. For us, these 3 cities are our lifeblood right now. I love the positive energy that we're seeing there. I love the momentum.

Of course, the next step is to take that momentum and build upon it. I love the base of super-active tournament organizers that we have going right now - between Matthew O'Connor and Niel Gan in New England, Zach Dang around DC, and Dave Wiegand in Portland, we've got a squad of highly skilled directors making it happen in their respective cities. The hope now is to find a whole bunch more Matthews and Niels and Zachs and Daves and scale everything up, up, up.

I think this is possible to do. As I look through the CoCo member list, I see a wide range of people across a wide range of places - 41 U.S. states and 6 Canadian provinces, to be precise. Our list of directors is similarly deep and diverse. It's clear that there are a ton of different people, in a ton of different places, who are passionate about what we do and eager to be a part of the tournament experience we offer. All we need to do now is channel that passion into getting real, tangible events on the tournament calendar.

That's the easy part, right?

Well, yes and no. We've had a ton of successes so far! And our whole team is so grateful that we've found so many people willing to step up and run tournaments for us. Having said that, we're also greedy. We want to find more, more, more.

This is something that I work on all the time - networking with people, encouraging them to run tournaments, doing what I can to empower them. But I can't do this alone - nor should I! The CoCo mission is all about the team effort. And there's nothing we love more than enlisting great new teammates.

So, if you want to help us run more Scrabble events all over North America, or know someone else who can, or just want to have a conversation about this stuff, reach out to us! We'd love to chat.