Hi everybody & welcome to the blog! For those who don't know me, my name is Billy Gilpin, I'm 31 years old, married, no kids, blah blah blah. I’ve really been
looking forward to spending the summer writing about the Midas Sport Shot
Singles League here at Northside Lanes. Bowling begins tonight at 7, and I think it’s
safe to call excitement about this year’s version of the PBA Experience® “unprecedented.”
As President of the League, bowler, employee, and owner’s son, I think I’ll be
able to offer a unique perspective on what should prove to be quite an
interesting 14 weeks.
A couple more notes about myself before we get down to
business: first off, I’m no PBA bowler. In fact, despite my lifelong connection
to Northside, I’m relatively new to competitive bowling. As a kid I would come
and bowl for fun, but was never all that serious about getting good at it. I
really picked up the game around the year 2000. In terms of skill, I’d call
myself an advanced intermediate bowler, if that makes any sense. In my
best league season to date, I carried a 186 average on Thursday nights last
year, and there’s no question that my game has improved tremendously since I
came back to work at the center two years ago. Given the quality of my
opposition and the increased challenge of the oil patterns this year, I’m sure my
confidence won’t last long…
This year’s league will be a singles format, with two
bowlers on each lane bowling individually against one of the bowlers from the
opposite lane. After two games, bowlers will switch to bowl on a different lane
pair and against a different opponent for two more games. Each 2-game “match”
will be worth 3 points, with a point to the winner of each game and a point to
the overall winner. What’s new and different about our setup this year is that
the point standings over the course of the summer will not determine the actual
winner of the league – this will be decided in a final-week roll-off (I love
this term, btw). The season standings will merely determine the seeding for
this final-week extravaganza.
This is huge for a semi-mediocre bowler like me. Even if I go
the whole season without breaking 150, a quality performance on the last day
could win me first-place money. Obviously, the Jeremy Merriners of the world
will have a far easier path to victory than mine would be in that example, but something
tells me I’ll need sources of hope after bowling on the Viper pattern tonight.
Well, it’s time to wrap up this first installment of my
Midas Sport League coverage. I’ll be headed over to the Lanes shortly to make
sure everything is in place for this evening. I know Don Spiggle and his crew
need to run a few tape readings to ensure the oil pattern we’re bowling on meets
USBC regulations for Sport Bowling. I’ll also be seeing how well Northside’s
BLS software will be able to automate the scheduling/standings for our
particular league format. I’ve been told it’s capable of doing it all for me,
but until you’ve tried, you never know! Anyway, before I go, another quick plug
for the league – there’s still time for you to get in, just show up around 6:45 tonight
– and for the generous folks at Midas Auto Care of Winchester, who are giving
$1000 to our prize fund for the second year in a row! We appreciate it!
Until later this evening…
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