Nick Jahl

There’s something immensely satisfying about the thud and thwack a four-pound ax makes when it loops through the air and  sticks onto a piece of wood. Especially when it’s a bull’s eye. Ax throwing, long a sport of choice for lumberjacks and Canadians, could become Washington’s new blowing-off-steam activity of choice, with multiple ax-throwing venues opening in the next few months. The first to arrive is Bad Axe Throwing, a Canadian-born chain with 19 locations, including one that debuted last week near Echostage in Northeast D.C. …“You don’t have to be a lumberjack to work here,” said Nick Jahl, 24, who instructed me in the art of ax throwing, “but we have a lot of beards and flannel in the company.”