Photo courtesy Life Magazine.
Breaking kubb news!
After decades spent scouring local flea markets and pawn shops and partnering with collectors and kubb historians across the globe, the LA Kubb Club has finally tracked down all of the long-lost pieces of the legendary Armstrong Cup.
Named for famed trumpeter, early kubb evangelist, and winner of the inaugural 1938 West Coast Championship tournament, Louis Armstrong, this trophy was presented to all the winners of Hollywood’s premier kubb tournament until the early seventies, when it mysteriously went missing during a brief hiatus in the Nixon administration.
Nobody was really sure what became of the trophy, but it was rumored that erstwhile tournament director Stanley Kubrick accidentally left it on set during the filming of “A Clockwork Orange,” where it disappeared into the Warner Brothers props department, never to be seen again. Until now!
Reassembled and painstakingly restored by specialists at Foothill Trophy outside Los Angeles, “Satchmo”, as the cup was informally known, looks better than ever and has been updated to include the names of all West Coast Champions through 2025!
While in recent years, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the northern Midwest, with their year-round tournaments, top-level players, and cheering crowds of fans, have rightfully become the center of kubb in the US, in the middle of the twentieth century the kubb center of gravity was much farther West. The reintroduction of the Armstrong Cup is a valuable reminder of the rich legacy of kubb in Southern California, dating back to the golden age of Hollywood.
The LA Kubb Club is thrilled to be reintroducing this storied trophy to a new generation of kubbers. It will be on display at the 2026 West Coast Kubb Championships on March 15 in South Pasadena, CA
