![]() Luckily, there are still some charming holdouts to this hyper and hyped-up trend that offer a pleasant bowling experience sans fluorescent bells and whistles. Bowling centers that have been around for decades are encouraged to upgrade and reinvent themselves as "Family Entertainment Centers" with bowling only a segment of the options offered to appeal to today's increasingly online youth. ![]() The style of bowling most familiar to Americans is ten-pin bowling-or to most folks, just "bowling."įrom the replacement of pin-setting boys with automatic pinsetters, to computerized scoring, the sport strives to remain relevant in an ever-changing landscape of entertainment options. Operated since 1952 by the same family, this 20-lane house was a bowling alley prior to that, with live pin-boys setting up the pins before the invention of automatic pinsetters. To get a taste of what good old-fashioned candlepin bowling is like, look no further than the Bowladrome in Wakefield, Massachusetts. In a characteristic unique to candlepin bowling, the fallen pins (often referred to as "dead wood" ) are not cleared between rolls on the same turn, and how the pins fall and stay can affect the score greatly. Like duckpins, the bowling ball has no holes, and the bowler is given three rolls per frame. The bowling balls in candlepins are the smallest and lightest of all three styles of bowling, weighing in at just under 3 pounds. A columnar shape with a slight convex curve in the middle, the pin-resembling a candle-is the same size at the top as the bottom. In the majority of the New England states, candlepin bowling is "real" bowling, while what the rest of the country does is referred to as "big ball bowling." Invented in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1880, the sport takes its name from the oblong shape of the pin. Since parts for these machines have not been made since 1973, owners like Nugent will often travel to duckpin lanes that have closed in order to source parts for their machines, warehousing what they might need in the future. Without the corporate investment and ability to scale production of the duckpin equipment, the sport remained in the alleys where it had originated, and was never was able to grow much past there. While durable, this machinery is considered one of the reasons why this style of bowling isn't more well-known.Īccording to " Duckpin," a documentary about the history of the sport that was partially filmed at Woodlawn, inventor Ken Sherman refused to sell the patent to his machine to the Brunswick Corporation, who held the patent for the automatic ten-pin pinsetter. Established in 1954, they still use the sturdy but antiquated automatic pinsetting machinery that was installed 60 years ago. Nugent, who grew up bowling at Woodlawn, has owned the lanes for the last 10 years. The duckpin ball's small scale is a bonus when looking for an activity that the entire family can enjoy, says Bob Nugent, owner of Woodlawn Duckpins in West Haven, Connecticut: "The balls are the perfect size for small children." He adds, "Since they are much lighter (than ten-pin balls) grandparents can join right in and have fun alongside the kids." The balls are roughly the size of a softball and have no holes in them, and the pins, while similar in silhouette to ten pins, are smaller too. The game is played on a standard-sized bowling alley and scored the same as ten-pin, but the player rolls three balls per turn instead of two. Upon first glance duckpin bowling appears to be a scaled-down version of ten-pins with a few slight differences. But recently available online archives of The Boston Globe have shown reference to duckpins as far back as 1893. Earlier documentation indicated that around 1900 two Baltimore Orioles, Wilbert Robinson and John McGraw, originated both the term and the sport in Baltimore. There is some controversy surrounding the true year and location of where it was invented. The least familiar of all of the bowling styles in the U.S., duckpins are mainly played in Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island, and a handful of other states.
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