Wednesday June 7th - Baylee van Steijn and Martin Foxhall were in Peterborough for a mixed pairs 242 and had a successful day with 2 wins. I don't know whether they got any prize money so perhaps they'd let us know via the comments section of this blog. Incidentally, since I started allowing comments on the blog this year I haven't received any! Feedback would be nice.
Thursday June 8th - Finally we had a day of bowling in the sunshine without jackets on. The SWS in club tournament was a very close affair as might be expected with only 2 games of 12 ends with one point covering the first three teams. The teams skipped by Eve Gorringe and Bob Bates were tied on points scored, points against and ends won but Eve's team won by virtue of having the highest score in one of their games. I can't recall that happening before in the seven years I've been bowling
Saturday June 10th - The James Gordon Insurance men's pairs is one of the most popular open tournaments and 18 teams competed. Unfortunately it clashed with the District Pairs playdowns which meant that I missed it for the first time in several years as I was playing with Bob Bates in the playdowns (read on for news of that). I'm delighted to be able to say that Ralph Stoffers and Carl Ferguson were the winners - it was great to have a Cobourg team winning this tournament for the first time in many years. I've been playing with Ralph in it for the last 4 or 5 years and we've come close but never won it. Obviously having a new partner made the difference for Ralph!
Also on Saturday June 10th - As I've already mentioned it was the District playdowns for the men's and ladies' pairs. Bob Bates and I made a good fist of it (you know that means we didn't win) with close games throughout but we finished 1-3 and did not qualify. Baylee van Steijn and Louisa Arthur won the 2016 Ontario stream in ladies' pairs but the competition was stiffer this year with only one provincial stream. In their final regular game they were denied the win that would have won the playdowns when the opposition skip snuck in with her final bowl. They then had to go through a four end playoff which turned out to be very dramatic, Three down in the fourth end they scored three to tie the tie breaker! An extra end sudden death went against them. But a great performance from them on a day that started at 9.00 am and finished just before 8.00 pm
Sunday June 11th - the first junior tournament of the season. The more senior Cobourg juniors were each paired with one of the more junior juniors which worked against them in the tournament but which gave the younger players a good experience. As a result none of our juniors was in the prize money. The tournament was won by Bridget and Jake Masterson of Peterborough with teams from Lindsay taking the other prizes. But all in all another good junior tournament, something that our club is well know for.
Tuesday June 13th - District 14 arranged a player development camp in Lindsay which was run by OLBA coaches. This is the first time that the District has done this and it was attended by 31 bowlers including Janet Taylor, Mike Place, Dave Shirley and Louisa and me. During the day we covered communication; analysis of heads and shot selection; basic strategy and other things such as mental aspects of the game. There were also practical sessions on the greens with feedback from the coaches on how we were applying what they taught us. Personally I thought it was a great day and would recommend you attend next time one is held. I also have some practice drills for each of the ten different bowling shots (who knew there were ten?) and can let you have a copy if you are interested
And finally Wednesday June 14th - I played in a men's pairs in Peterborough with Martin Foxhall and really enjoyed my day playing with him. We won the 2nd two game high prize (which means we came fourth) with 39 points. I think Martin scored 38 of them!
If you are playing in tournaments at other clubs and have some success please let me know (with photos if you have them) do that I can include them in the blog and in the newspaper reports. If you don't know who "I" am it's Bill Arthur
If you missed the newspaper report in Northumberland Today this week here is a link. Click here
Good Bowling