Jigsaw-puzzle enthusiasts compete with other teams at Goblets & Goblins in Newmarket, Ont.Photography by Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
At kitchen tables, bedroom desks and on the floor, they sit anxiously with their boxes, waiting for the signal. Inside, a 500-piece puzzle – and the chance to win the Canadian Jigsaw Puzzle Association’s virtual speed puzzle competition.
Russell Walsh, one of the founders of the CJPA, is acting as referee on this Saturday afternoon in December. On Zoom, he goes over the rules: boxcutters are allowed, as are sorting trays and box stands. Your camera must always show your puzzling surface. Each participant has 2½ hours to complete the jigsaws – plenty of time for the top competitors. Along with glory and bragging rights, the first-place finisher gets a $50 gift card to the online store Puzzles Canada.
“Five, four, three, two, one. Start your timers,” Mr. Walsh announces.
The 40 competitors from Vancouver to Halifax deftly slice open their puzzle boxes and dump out 500 jigsaw pieces. Immediately, different strategies emerge. Some sort pieces by colour and organize them in small containers. Others isolate the border pieces, or sift through pieces handfuls at a time. Ten minutes in, and borders begin to form. Hands are in constant motion as they flip, spin and finally make enough connections that small patches start to grow.
Around the one-hour mark, someone speaks. “I’m finished. 58:09,” says 24-year-old Tess McLachlin, a civil engineering student in Vancouver, as she shows off her completed puzzle of a young girl taking a pie out of an oven in a rustic country kitchen. A minute and 21 seconds later, Montreal’s Sophie Helg, a 37-year-old drafter at an engineering firm, will finish in second place.
For the past year, the CJPA has organized these monthly virtual competitions, attracting a wide swath of retirees, university students and families from across Canada, who all share an obsession with jigsaws. “I think the fastest we sold out was in 12 minutes. We are the hottest ticket next to Taylor Swift,” says Mr. Walsh. They cap the virtual events to 40 competitors – that’s how many people Mr. Walsh says he can see on one screen – and keep the entry fee low at $35, which includes a 500-piece puzzle (the same one for all contestants) and shipping.
The CJPA operates a lively Facebook group, where puzzlers share photos of their completed works, organize in-person meet-ups, fan over their favourite jigsaw artists, and lament over the seemingly universal experience of buying a secondhand puzzle with a missing piece.
Katie Castelli, events co-ordinator at Goblets & Goblins, announces the winner of the puzzle competition.
Although a niche pursuit, speed puzzling has become exceedingly popular since the pandemic, when many people turned to their old hobbies and posted time-lapse videos and jigsaw reviews on social media. The World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship, which is held in Spain, has exploded since it started in 2019, growing from around 530 competitors to more than 900 in 2023.
The Worlds currently has open registration, meaning puzzlers don’t need an official ranking to qualify, but Mr. Walsh suspects that may change in the future.
“I thought I was alone in the world,” says Mr. Walsh, who has loved puzzling since he was a child. “I didn’t realize there were a whole bunch of other people until the pandemic hit.”
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Amanda Belanger, a high school teacher in Bradford, Ont., and one of the founders of the CJPA, took up speed puzzling during the pandemic. “Puzzling kept me occupied and away from a screen,” she says. “Then I started timing myself just for fun. I got curious to find out how I compared to other people because I had no clue.” It turns out, she was pretty fast. In the CJPA’s first competition last January, she came in second.
Ms. Belanger has since started a swap group and competes in group events at a local game board cafe. “My friends and I go every month and kick butt,” she laughs.
“I wasn’t that obsessed with puzzling, and now I have a puzzle room,” she says as she reveals a shelf full of dozens of puzzles on her to-do list. “One of my friends is a collector and probably has 2,000 puzzles in her basement, so there are people who make me feel better about my collection.”
Amanda Belanger, right, celebrates coming in first at the Newmarket event with teammates Chantal Lamontagne, left, Fawn Gillard, middle left, and Sandy Foster.
Like Ms. Belanger, Lauren Crawford rediscovered puzzling in the pandemic while she was in university. “I’ve been doing puzzles since I was a little kid. When I was three or four years old, I would do little 50-piece Barbie puzzles,” she says. Now as a nurse in Hamilton, puzzling is a way for Ms. Crawford to unwind after a stressful shift. She’ll play YouTube or listen to a podcast, and focus on a puzzle to let her mind decompress. She only recently started speed puzzling after she saw videos from the 2023 World Championship and asked herself, “I wonder how fast I could do that?” (In the evolution from recreational puzzler to speed puzzler, this seems to be a gateway question.)
She competed for the first time ever in the CJPA’s December event, placing first in the novice category and 12th overall with a time of 1:34:37. In January, she’s competing in the pairs event with her mother.
This May in Georgetown, Ont., the CJPA will host its second-ever in-person national competition, with nearly double the capacity to accommodate more players in individuals, pairs and group events. Registration opens in February, which means there’s still time for aspiring speed puzzlers to get some practise.
Although there’s no wrong way to do a jigsaw, many players recommend starting with the borders first, and then sorting the rest by colour. “I’m a border girl,” says Ms. Belanger. “I like to have that frame to work from.”
If you’re working as a team, communication is key. “You basically need to assign tasks,” says Mr. Walsh. “It’s a lot of talking,” adds Ms. Belanger. “Like, ‘I’m working on the blue sky, throw me blue pieces if you see them!’ You’ll call out what you’re working on, like in volleyball, you’re each picking your next step.”
Mr. Walsh dreams of creating a super team of Canada’s fastest puzzlers to compete at the Worlds. He’s planning to go to the Worlds no matter what in 2024 and will play either as an individual or get a team together.
“I know I’m not going to win anything there,” says Mr. Walsh, who says it takes him around 1½ hours to do a 500-piece puzzle. The winning time last year was 37:59. “I’ve decided at my age, I can’t put it off forever. It’s a bucket-list thing.”