I'd also note that at one point there were two Canadian teams in Major League Baseball - there used to be a Montreal Expos National League team, before it folded a few decades ago. Regardless, there were no Canadian teams around whenever it was decided to call the ultimate MLB championship the World Series (for whatever long-forgotten true reason).
Aside from that, I've tried to hunt down the origins of the use of the name 'International Draughts', and have nothing really to show for it so far. Other than that the wiki on the game that I gave earlier traces its first championship back to 1894, and there's no way it was International in the sense H.G. wishes for that word (i.e. played widely, AND the most popular variant of its game [checkers]). However, the wiki doesn't state what the game was actually called back in the 1800's at any point.
What might be interesting is to consider what if 10x10 checkers is played less than 8x8 checkers world-wide even today, BUT the 10x10 game is qualitatively better than 8x8 AND elite checkers players prefer it when competing [which they do internationally, too]. In that case it doesn't matter how many amateurs prefer 8x8 checkers worldwide, still, i.e. leading in popularity arguably may not be of absolute importance to whether the name International Checkers is deserved.
Here's a possibly amusing little reddit piece on why the World Series is called what it is:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/572erb/why_is_it_called_the_world_series_when_you_guys/
I'd also note that at one point there were two Canadian teams in Major League Baseball - there used to be a Montreal Expos National League team, before it folded a few decades ago. Regardless, there were no Canadian teams around whenever it was decided to call the ultimate MLB championship the World Series (for whatever long-forgotten true reason).
Aside from that, I've tried to hunt down the origins of the use of the name 'International Draughts', and have nothing really to show for it so far. Other than that the wiki on the game that I gave earlier traces its first championship back to 1894, and there's no way it was International in the sense H.G. wishes for that word (i.e. played widely, AND the most popular variant of its game [checkers]). However, the wiki doesn't state what the game was actually called back in the 1800's at any point.
What might be interesting is to consider what if 10x10 checkers is played less than 8x8 checkers world-wide even today, BUT the 10x10 game is qualitatively better than 8x8 AND elite checkers players prefer it when competing [which they do internationally, too]. In that case it doesn't matter how many amateurs prefer 8x8 checkers worldwide, still, i.e. leading in popularity arguably may not be of absolute importance to whether the name International Checkers is deserved.