9 Years, 16 competitors, 1000s of Votes, 16 points

Earlier this month, Hasbro, the company behind the game of Scrabble, held a contest for fans to vote for the first word to be added to the official Scrabble dictionary in nine years. It. Was. A. Big. Deal.  The contest began with 16 competitors, but the worldwide Geocaching community made its voice heard and carryied ‘Geocache’ (worth 16 points without any special squares) to the final spot.

First off, from all of us at Geocaching HQ, we want to give you a resounding thank you. You showed your pride for the game we all love and you all came through in a big way. Here’s a quick recap and a somewhat biased play-by-play of the competitors Geocache went up against, and ultimately defeated:

Geocache vs. Bitcoin

Bitcoin may have had the upper hand if voting were only accessible via Tor, but ultimately, it never stood a chance. This obscure, highly volatile internet currency may have been in the headlines recently, but it’s longevity is still unproven. Geocache took an early lead and never looked back.

Geocache vs. Cosplay

Don’t get me wrong—some of the creativity and craftsmanship that goes into cosplay is incredible. The attention to detail is impeccable. However, we have geocache makers who apply that same level of creativity and ingenuity into geocache containers. Plus, after the geocache is created, you actually get to go find it and touch it—which in my opinion, gives geocache the upper hand.

Geocache vs. Ew

This one was a tough battle. At some point, we’ve all probably said ‘ew’ while geocaching. It all came down to this: ‘ew’ isn’t actually a word. While it’s something we’ve all said, you won’t find it in a dictionary. Match goes to geocache.

Geocache vs. Zen

It all came down to this. Zen may be useful in Scrabble, and many people campaigned for its acceptance—however, the Geocaching community was too strong. Zen was a formidable opponent and would have had a significant impact on the game. If it were a person, we’d give it a gentlemanly handshake and congratulate it on a well-fought contest.

On April 10, 2014, Geocache was announced as the winner on the United States TV show, Good Morning America. The story was then picked up by news outlets like ABC, the Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal and even TIME. Since then, we’ve seen plenty of people who were following the Scrabble vote who didn’t know about geocaching pick up the hobby we all know and love.

Thanks again for everyone who voted and helped make Geocache the first word added to the official Scrabble dictionary by public vote.