One of my husband’s fondest memories of visiting Gloucester, Massachusetts when he was a kid was going candlepin bowling. When we visited Gloucester last week to see his 92 year old great aunt, he was determined to find a local candlepin bowling alley to give our kids a taste of his fun memory from childhood.
Because we were there on a sunny Saturday in July, everyone else in town was playing on the beach (we drove by the beaches and they were way too crowded for our tastes, anyway!) and so we had the bowling alley to ourselves.
Everyone had a blast.
Wondering what candlepin bowling is? I was completely unaware of it before last week. Apparently, candlepin bowling is a variation of the more traditional bowling that is played primarily in New England (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont) as well as Canada.
The main differences between candlepin bowling and the more popular ten-pin bowling? In candlepin bowling each player uses three balls per frame, the balls are much smaller (and thus much easier for kids to handle) and the balls do not have finger holes. The pins are thinner and straight, making them harder to knock down and more challenging to score points. For the record, our youngest, AJ, was beating everyone else in the family almost the entire game. The younger kids seemed to do better than the older family members.
Have you ever played candlepin bowling?
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wow. i have never heard of it…
thanks .. now, i want to look and see if i can find one around here…
https://jumpin-beans.blogspot.com/2013/08/childhood-memories.html
Looks like fun!
I’d never heard of it till I read your post – but it looks fun, and I’m wondering if it might be a bit easier to play than tenpin bowling, which I’ve never mastered!
Ive never heard of it either, so I guess I’ve never played it. Sounds interesting!