Oak Island hosts teen axe throwing event with local police

Oak Island put local law enforcement on the same lanes as teenagers Tuesday, staging Chop With A Cop as a free axe-throwing competition for ages 13 to 18 at Throw Baxe Axe House and Board Game Lounge in Southport. The town capped the field at 48 spaces and split the event into two sessions, 10 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., with teams randomly assigned and selected time slots honored for participants.

The venue fit the assignment. Throw Baxe describes itself as a retro-themed, family-friendly axe house and board game lounge, and its setup includes four double lanes that can handle up to six people apiece. At 806 N Howe Street, the indoor space gave Oak Island a controlled setting for a youth event built around supervised throws and lane rotation, with officers from four different agencies joining the competition.

That structure gave the event a clear sports identity rather than a loose meet-and-greet. Oak Island folded Chop With A Cop into its recreation calendar, alongside excursions and weekly programming, and the free, age-gated format gave teens a first step into a lane sport that also has leagues on site. For a town recreation department, the value goes beyond filling a one-day roster: it puts younger athletes into a rules-based environment where axe throwing is treated as an organized activity, not a novelty.

Chop With A Cop was not a one-off experiment. Oak Island’s news archive says the Police Department held the third annual version on June 24 of the previous year, and earlier coverage traced the program back to an inaugural teen event set for June 27 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. A Brunswick County edition also brought in the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office, Oak Island Police, Southport Police and Boiling Spring Lakes Police, showing how the format has grown into a repeatable outreach model with a sporting core.