Friday, September 12, 2014

2014 Atllantic Bowls in PEI


2014 Atlantic Bowls weekend

2014 Atlantic bowls in Charlottetown PEI

Last  weekend, we the Maritime Competitive Bowlers, all  gathered together with the Quebec delegates for the 2014 Atlantic Bowls Championship at the Sherwood LBC in Charlottetown PEI..

Although the flag of Newfoundland flies with the other provinces on the edge of the Sherwood LBC green in the above photo, it is been quite a few years since a Newfoundland team has presented or participated.  Transportation is probably the cause, as the boat ferry from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia can be several hundred dollars to travel by car. (and that is just one way) But until the province withdraws officially it will still be waited upon for a team.

It was the provincial  Lawn Bowls Assoc of Prince Edward Island turn this year to  hosted the 42th Annual Atlantic Bowls, and everything was perfect.  Greens, organization and Weather all as planned.   Video of the 2013 games in Montreal is available on youtube. and although I did not see video cameras I hope that something of theses games appears online.
Quebec entry into 2013 Atlantic (video Youtube)


Of the four provinces participating, Quebec is the continual gold medalist and they are often followed by  Nova Scotia. These two provinces have multi clubs in their major city (Montreal and Halifax) area and therefore a great interclub system to build strong competitions.
New Brunswick enters behind Flag Bearer

While New Brunswick has four clubs at different levels of skill development with Fredericton the strongest, the remaining two provinces, PEI and Newfoundland has had for years had only  one club.(Although I am told the Peter Pan Club in Newfoundland has (or is about to) close. )

   New Brunswick, my home province has three areas of club development and during the last few years we have seen club
Our team for this years 2104 Atlantic
memberships decrease in most clubs. 
In the Moncton area where until last year there were three clubs it is now down to Centennial with their double green and Riverview which is a small (less than 20 members) club across the Pedicatcodia River.The third club in Shediac lost it greens and clubhouse to the municipality. The other two cities of New Brunswick, Fredericton and Saint John each have their one green clubs.Fredericton has done well with membership and fees while all the other NB clubs are struggling.


The province of Nova Scotia has all its clubs except one (Bridgetown)  in the Halifax area. This allows for much inter club competition and quality player development. 
2011 atlantics in Bridgetown
Bridgetown  which hosted the 39th Competition in 2011, has been struggling for the past years with low membership and high club maintance cost, but has accepted to again host this competition in 2015.

New Brunswick has about 40 players from the 4 active clubs gathering every second Wednesday to play intercity clubs games.which  build strong team.  Although with the exception of the Trites Team most interclub change every year. So is not unexpected that Quebec and Nova Scotia, who have 5 LBC clubs in their downtown area continue to have strong teams.. 

Over the next three blobs I will discuss various aspects of this year's competition.  First, " skipping from the mat " is becoming more common and as teams realize the value of a lead building the head. 


2 comments:

  1. I have often wanted to skip from the lead position because that way I could better control the jack; however, I think there is a difficulty in the rules. The only responsibility that cannot be delegated is keeping score but the two scorers need to play in the same position according to the Crystal Mark World bowls rules. Is this not so?

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  2. Yes, it is necessary to stay in line with the rules. I skipped from the lead b/c the individual gets too excited and becomes rather destructive as skip. The game is a team sport and the only problem I had skipping from the lead was when as lead I called for an official. I must have called 3 or 4 times and it concerned the moving of the mat with the protective screens. However, in the 2nd game, the opponent skip came to me (when crossing the green to the head) and told me to maybe work with the individual. I explained to my partner that head games were not good sportsmanship and some people think his acting out at the head is doing to his opponent what others often did to him. He quite down and we had a good game. Yes, the lead can only go to the head after bowling the 3rd bowl but I usually waited unless I need time to discuss with my partner. It is team play and what ever way works that is what counts.

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