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Sports This Week: Cubing in spotlight

While the Rubik’s Cube is sort of the ‘poster boy’ for the larger sphere of cubing, it is also sort of the entry point with competitions also in 4x4x4, 5x5x5, 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 cubes, and Megaminx, Pyraminx  and Skewb.
sports-col-cubing-in-lloydminister
Cubing in Lloydminister.

YORKTON - It does seem to be increasingly difficult to define exactly what is a sport.

When you see ‘Breaking’ at the Paris Olympics and recall the ‘controversy’ around the efforts of Australian competitor Rachel Gunn, and recognize Dancesport is competitive ballroom dancing its name was invented to help competitive ballroom dancing gain Olympic recognition it’s pretty easy to see the definition of sports it expanding.

And of course there are those who believe that chess should be in the Olympics too.

So when a writer of both sports and game reviews comes across a ‘cubing’ competition upcoming in Saskatoon Aug. 2, I was unsure what exactly it was and then is it a sport?

To start, most will recognize cubing as competitive Rubik’s Cube, although the famed 3D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Erno Rubik that has frustrated so many since it hit store shelves in the late 1970s is really only a small component of cubing today.

Viann Chang is an organizer with the upcoming event in Saskatoon. She said while the local event will offer only a handful of disciplines The World Cube Association (WCA) currently, the WCA offers competitions in 17 events. Not all of them are offered at every competition, but they are usually all offered at national, continental, and global championships.

CubingUSA recently hosted the Rubik’s WCA World Championship July 3-6, 2025 at the Seattle Convention Center in Seattle, showcasing the scale of cubing as the event attracted hundreds of competitors from around the world – in the famed Rubik’s Cube two competitors from China topped things, with third to one from Poland. The champion Yiheng Wang averaged 4.23 seconds on five puzzle solves.

While the Rubik’s Cube is sort of the ‘poster boy’ for the larger sphere of cubing, it is also sort of the entry point with competitions also in 4x4x4, 5x5x5, 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 cubes, and Megaminx, Pyraminx  and Skewb, plus some are also done one-handed, or blindfolded.

Chang said most start with the 3x3x3 cube, and then evolve into other disciplines.

In her own case Chang was on a bus and asked to help solve the familiar cube, and didn’t know how.

“I figured I had to learn to live up to their expectations of me,” she said.

Before entering her first competition she had learn several solves so could compete in different events.

But is cubing a sport?

Chang said it depends who you ask about whether it is a sport.

“For me, I see it more generally as a hobby, or activity,” she said, but she added there are certainly others “who see it more as a sport.”

Chang said there are those who see having cubing recognized as sport will help attract younger competitors.

The sport/activity isn’t huge in Saskatchewan, Chang expects 30-40 at the Saskatoon event but there is certainly interest. She said of interest in the province, “in terms of comparing with other parts of Canada not really a lot.”

But there are competitions held not just in Saskatoon but Regina, North Battleford and Lloydminster.

In terms of Canada things are bit better.

“We have some pretty fast people up here,” said Chang, adding the biggest communities are in Ontario and B.C.

Speedcubing Canada oversees things nationally as Canada’s official World Cube Association (WCA) regional organization. Speedcubing Canada exists to promote and support the Canadian speedcubing community. It can be found at www.speedcubingcanada.org

The World Cube Association (WCA) is the worldwide non-profit organization that regulates and holds competitions for mechanical puzzles that are operated by twisting groups of pieces. Since the start of the WCA there have been over 11,700 competitions. The WCA was founded by Ron van Bruchem of the Netherlands and Tyson Mao of the United States in 2004. The goal of the World Cube Association is to have “more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair and equal conditions,” details Wikipedia.