POST 300. Hitting 300 doesn't remind me of the American Bicentennial. It makes me think of bowling.

In all of New York State, there's pretty much one type of indoor bowling: ten-pin, the kind with those big balls and the "perfect games" of 300. Yet there are other types of indoor bowling stretching from the DC area to Canada.

One is duckpin bowling, where the balls can fit into the palm of an average hand, the pins are short and squat, and there are three rolls per frame.

Another kind of indoor bowling is candlepin bowling. Here the balls are also small and light but the pins tall and slender. As with duckpin bowling, there are three rolls per frame; however, the fallen pins (deadwood) are not cleared within a frame. It's all explained at the website of the International Candlepin Bowling Association (ICBA), which also boasts a short jingle and interesting sound effects.

Other North American bowling variants are rubber duckpin and Canadian five pin.

Perfect "300" games are unheard of in candlepin and duckpin (though not in rubber duckpin), but for anyone who has a hard time handling the big balls of ten-pin bowling, the appeal of duckpin and candlepin is evident. As the ICBA puts it,

The sport of Candlepins is a bowling game unique to New England and the Canadian maritime Provinces. First played in Worcester Massachusetts in 1880, Candlepin Bowling is an exciting skillful sport, requiring minimal physical strength while demanding great timing, dexterity and patience from each participant. Candlepin bowling is enjoyed by the young and old, the strong and the handicapped, by boys and girls, men and women.

It is indeed a sport for all people.

I wonder if there are any duckpin or candlepin lanes anywhere in New York. I know of at least one building on the Upper West Side that used to have some kind of bowling alley in its basement; I think at least one old great home in the Hudson Valley also housed a bowling alley.













Image by David Marc Fischer using Church Sign Generator