Candlepins for Dollars

[xiphias]

So, this past Saturday night, I saw something on television actually worth watching.

Bowling.

See, here in New England, we have this sport. It's called candlepin bowling, and it's been said that "candlepin is to ten-pin as baseball is to softball."

Around here, the kind of bowling that you all outside of New England call "bowling", we call it "ten-pin."

Candlepin bowling is like ten-pin except:

Candlepins look like this:

while ten-pins look like this:

A candlepin ball is about 2 and a half pounds (1 kg), and is 4.5 inches (about 11 cm) in diameter. A ten-pin ball is between 10 and 16 pounds (4.5 kg to 7.25 kg) and is about 8.5 inches in diameter (22 cm).

With the ten-pin ball being bigger, AND the ten-pin pins being bigger, ten-pin is much easier than candlepin.

In addition, in candlepin, fallen pins are left in play. This makes the game more challenging and adds a little more strategy: you can attempt to use the fallen pins to knock over standing pins.

To level things out somewhat, in candlepin, you get three balls per box rather than two, as in ten-pin. Nonetheless, the scoring is the same: a strike is all ten pins down with one ball, a spare is all ten pins down with two balls. All ten pins down with three balls is a ten-box, and scores ten points, but doesn't give you any extra points as a strike or a spare does.

In ten-pin, a perfect 300 game is a thing of beauty, and is rare, like a hole-in-one in golf. A perfect 300 game is something that people will talk about for years.

But in candlepin, there has never been a 300 game, ever. That shows you how much harder it is.

Anyway, there have been a pretty good number of candlepin bowling television shows over the past fifty years. But there hasn't been one on broadcast television in the Boston market for the past decade. (There's apparently one on cable, and there's one in Augusta, Maine on broadcast.)

But there is one now. Channel 56 just started a show, Candlepins for Dollars, 6 pm on Saturdays.

It's a lot of fun.

I totally forgot how much fun candlepin is to watch. I mean, if you're watching professional ten-pin bowlers, petty much anything they throw is going to be a strike or a spare. In candlepin, you're excited when someone clears a ten-box, and even a seven or eight is pretty good. Actually seeing a strike in candlepin is genuinely exciting.

Comments

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

i think you forgot to close a link tag somewhere.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

...waitasec. You two know each other? :)

The world, it continues to get smaller.

Oh, and ObTopic: this post reminds me of when I was little and I used to watch Bowling For Dollars with my dad, if anyone remembers that feature of the 70's.

[alcinoe.livejournal.com]

I thought it was "candlepin for cash"

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever met her in PERSON.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Squinch!

(The sound of your social circle getting smaller...)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Thanks: actually, I just instinctively put a link tag instead of an img tag. . . oops.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's a lot more common for folk to bowl 300 in tenpins. Improved equipment and lane oiling have upped the average score a fair amount, and while still a significant feat 300 happens a lot more often than a golf hole-in-one (except on the pro tour, where they make the lane conditions more difficult).

I'm bemused by calling it "Candlepins for Dollars"; darn it, we want to be sure you know it isn't just people doing this for the heck of it. There's "dollars" involved!

Seriously, it's not "Basketball for Dollars", "Hockey for Dollars", "Baseball for a Whole Lot of Dollars, At Least If We're Talking the Red Sox or Yankees".

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

But the point of it is that you can win up to $1500! Even the person knoecked out in the first round goes home with $200. And, if you mark (strike or spare) three times in a row, you get a bonus $25!

It's not a lot of it, but there is prize money involved.

Aces vs. 300 Games

[(Anonymous)]

Do you have data to back up your claim that there are more 300 games then hole-in-ones? I know there are approximately 40,000 aces a year (Golf Digest) reported, of course. I had one in 1982. My co-worker had a 300 game a few years back, and I started wondering which was harder. I would say the 300 game is harder because you need 12 shots in a row, whereas an ace is only 1 swing. Another thing is the pressure; you aren't really trying to ace a hole, it just happens, but when you have 11 strikes, you know darn well what that next shot means. My blog is hole-in-1-82.blogspot.com if you want to answer there.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

I was never much of one to watch bowling as a spectator sport... for me it was an active sport (back when you used to have lanes all over the place). Now it's darn hard to find an easy to reach a good candlepin lane.

I never saw anyone bowl anything near a perfect game of candlepin either...

Playing the deadwood was always an important part of the game for me... it was generally the only way I ever managed to pick up a spare...

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I've never played candlepin, as my hand gave out shortly after I moved to the area. But Lanes and Games, near Alewife, claims to have candlepin and tenpin (I see their sign occasionally, when I take the express bus from Burlington and look out the window instead of down at my book.) There's also Sacco's Bowl Haven in Davis Square.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

So Channel 56 is bringing back the equivalent of the show (I think) they had in the 70s, "Candlepins for Cash"? Cool.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

The ball is two and a half pounds? How do you keep it near the ground?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

You don't -- but if it doesn't hit the ground before the "lob line", which is ten feet away from the toe line, it's a foul.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Candlepin bowling...brings back gazillions of childhood memories. When I was a kid, Dad worked evenings so if I wanted to hang out with him my best time to do so was Saturday afternoons. And what he liked to do, on Saturday afternoons, was do all the family laundry and fold/iron it on the living-room coffee table while watching candlepin bowling. :)

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

I am outside New England*, and I call it ten-pin also, but what you call candlepin I think is what we call "duckpin". I used to be on a duck-pin league. I love it because I love all forms of bowling, but my tendonitis/carpal-tunnel-ridden wrists can't handle much ten-pin.

*though, to be fair, I spent several years in New England (2 or 3 in Connecticut and 2 in the Boston area) and a lot of summers in Falmouth, and my father's whole family is from New England. Therefore, I'm an honorary New Englander.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Duck pin bowling is different still from ten pin and candlepin. The pins are shaped like ten pin pins, but they're smaller. The balls, like candelpin are small, have no finger holes, and you get 3 per frame... so everything else seems the same. Here in MD, when finding a bowling alley, you have to specify whether you want duck pin or ten pin.

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

The best part of candlepin, I think, is that it is so kid-friendly. I find the tenpin ball inordinately heavy, and it's awkward to get my fingers in the holes. But anyone can play candlepin (though not well).

Around here, they have 'bumper bowling' for the kids--little plastic guards over the gutters keep the ball in play. A no-lose situation, it's a great way for a family to have a couple of hours of fun. And even a two-year-old can learn to throw between the legs (though my kids sometimes lob it). It's cheap, too.

In fact, Bren's 5th birthday party was bumper bowling.