CANDLEPIN BOWLING IN SCARBOROUGH, MAINE

Candlepins are 15-3/4 inches tall

Candlepin bowling isn't available in California but it's more popular than ten-pin bowling in parts of New England and Canada. It doesn't require as much physical exertion as ten-pin bowling but getting high scores is much more difficult.

No finger holes required.

As in duckpin bowling, the ball is light and a little bigger than a softball. The maximum weight allowed for a ball is 2 lb 7 oz which is slightly less than the weight of a candlepin (2 lb 8 oz). You can see how it would be much easier for small children and seniors to participate in this game. Compare rolling a ball a little under three pounds to a big one weighing eight to sixteen pounds. One can carry three bowling balls and shoes in a bag the size of a purse and it would weigh only about twelve pounds. Think of that the next time you pull your four-ball roller weighing 60+ pounds out of the trunk.

The ball can easily slip through the gaps

When you're used to ten-pin where the ball can't fit between two adjacent pins without hitting at least one of them, some of the pin action in candlepin can be utterly shocking. At least a couple of times, I rolled balls that barely missed the head pin and I knocked down only two pins (the 3 and 9 pins). That same shot in ten-pin would typically knock down six or seven pins. It's possible to shoot one straight down the middle and take out only the 1 and 5 pins! That helps explain why the pros and top tournament players in this game average in the 120-130 range. Nobody has ever bowled a perfect 300.

Big 20 Bowling Center in Maine

We stopped at Big 20 Bowling Center in Scarborough, Maine to bowl a few games this morning. Each of us bowled three games and none of us broke 100. Shannon had the highest score with 95 in our first game. She also bowled our only strike of the day. Between the three of us, we had seven spares in nine games. In this game, one doesn't feel so bad having a bunch of open frames. I averaged 84.6 for my three games and I felt like I was doing okay for a first-timer. (I average 184 in ten-pin bowling.)

Shannon's 95 was our high score

The scorekeepers are electronic but not automatic. We had to enter our own scores manually after each frame. Some of the locals playing on the lane next to us helped us out a lot with the scoring and gameplay. Like duckpin bowling, a bowler gets three shots per frame. Actually, what we call a frame in ten-pin is called a "box" and each game is called a "string." Unlike ten-pin and duckpin bowling, the deadwood is not swept off the pin deck until the end of the frame. The participants can choose how many frames are bowled per turn. The local custom is two frames per turn so we did it their way. On the scoreboard, the "X" is not the symbol for a strike. It's the symbol for a "ten-box" or a frame box in which all three shots were needed to knock down the ten pins. (There's no scoring bonus for a ten-box such as there is for a strike or spare.) You'll see "X" on the scoreboard in a few places -- don't confuse them for strikes. Shannon found candlepin bowling more to her liking than ten-pin and duckpin. Today's scores might give one a hint as to her favoritism:

Shannon 95-78-78 (251)
Mark    81-84-89 (254)
George  42-78-76 (196)

Here is a video showing several frames of our candlepin bowling experience this morning.

A young man by the name of Mike Walker was running the operation during our visit to Big 20. He was extremely patient with us newbies and he shared a lot of information about the game of candlepin and its history in New England.