It came up casually at first. “Let’s get drunk and play hammer darts,” said Dan, this guy in my fraternity. I had no idea what he was talking about and neither did anyone else. So I bit and asked him what the fuck is hammer darts, which is how it all began.
Dan explained to us that he had recently been watching the show Friends and came across a scene where Joey mentions this game. I believe the exchange originally occurred between Joey and Chandler and went like this:
CHANDLER: Okay,
but be careful, okay? Because I wanna get our security deposit
back.
JOEY: Yeah,
I think we said good-bye to that when we invented ‘Hammer Darts.’
My response to Dan was to first make fun of him for watching Friends, then I told other people in the frat that he had been watching Friends, and then I eventually complimented him on an awesome idea.
When I remember the first time we played Hammer Darts at the frat, there are two things that really amaze me. First, that we were actually able to make this game work and second, that no one was ever seriously injured or took a hammer to the head.
Since the show didn’t go into the specifics and rules of the game, we were left to basically create the game ourselves. Obviously the gist of the game is to play darts using hammers. This required us to create a dart board capable of handling hammers being thrown at it and a system of rules and scoring.
THE DART BOARD
The dart board we created consisted of a wooden frame which would hold up a square piece of sheet rock, which would act as the actual dart board. I believe we cut the sheet rock into pieces that were 3 feet by 3 feet, and then hung them on the frame, which placed the board about 4 feet off the ground.
Hammers do a lot of damage when thrown at sheet rock, so we needed to create multiple boards, to replace the broken ones. On the front of each board, we each took turns drawing different targets. These targets ranged from old girlfriends names to other frat’s letters. We got pretty creative.
RULES AND SCORING
Like any other game of darts, you must stand an appropriate distance away from the board. Our required distance was further than an ordinary game of darts because we were throwing hammers. While I can’t remember exactly how far away we stood, I want to say it was close to 15 to 20 feet away. The proper stance for Hammer Darts consisted of both feet on the ground, two hands on the handle of the hammer, which is then hoisted over your head, and then thrown like a battle axe towards the target.
Scoring was simple. If you missed the board completely, you were awarded no points. Hitting the board resulted in 1 point, getting the hammer stuck in the board was worth 2 points, and if you threw the hammer and it broke completely through the board, you received 3 points, and a lot of cheers and yelling from drunken frat guys.
THE FIRST GAME
Everyone in the house showed up for the first game because there was free beer and the opportunity to throw hammers at images of things we didn’t like. I should note that we did not start playing the game and then start drinking, we all made sure we were good and drunk before the hammers ever began to fly. I cannot stress how dangerous I really think this was and should probably note that the smartest thing we did that night was move the game outdoors and play in our parking lot.
The game got underway and was a huge hit, everyone took their turns throwing hammers. People were cheering, shotgunning beers, rocketing hammers, doing shots, and just acting stupid. As the game progressed, everyone got louder and drunker, while a crowd of random people and spectators started to form around us. This eventually caused a problem.
Someone in our neighborhood heard eventually grew tired of the noise, saw a huge group of drunken guys rocketing hammers around, and called the police. Ordinarily the presence of police marks an end to a party, but not this time. This is where the game became really interesting.
The police showed up to our house and I imagine they were expecting to bust another rowdy frat party. However, when they got there, they saw we were just enjoying a newly created, slightly dangerous game, which impressed them. And why wouldn’t it impress them? How often do police show up at a frat house and see guys whipping hammers around?
After the cops told us why they were there, for the noise complaint, they decided to stick around for a while and watch the game. This was hilarious. He we were, drunken frat guys, throwing hammers at a board spray painted with profanity, being cheered on by the police.
What started as a thorough mocking of our frat brother for watching Friends, turned into an amazing night with a crowd of people, including local police, cheering us on as we drunkenly threw hammers through the air. Only at a State school can someone be a part of something so awesome.