Bowls Day in Canada

Saturday June 3rd was designated ‘Bowls Day in Canada’ in a joint promotion by Bowls Canada and ParticipAction. The intention is to highlight the benefits of the sport and to provide an opportunity to ‘Give it a Try’ and for those working their way through the 150Playlist, to cross lawn bowling off their list.

Our club celebrated this first national bowls day in different ways with some playing in the Provincial Fours at Burlington and some playing in a mixed pairs at the Cobourg club.

The bad news of the day was that the Cobourg men’s and ladies’ fours teams competing in Burlington did not have much luck on the day and both teams failed to qualify for the quarter finals from their respective group matches. However there was a ‘gold lining’ as Martin Foxhall, a Cobourg member, was on the men’s winning team. By virtue of his Ontario registration through the Stoufville club he qualifies to play for a team from that club. His team will now compete in the Canadian Nationals in BC in August.

The good news is that the open mixed pairs at the Cobourg club was a great success both in the numbers it attracted and in the results. About 70 people attended the event including the forty competitors. The tournament was opened by Dan Milligan of MVP Sports who are providing sponsorship for ‘Bowls Day in Canada’ by way of prizes for clubs that registered their event with Bowls Canadaand they also provide the prize for the spider before the tournament.

The tournament was sponsored by we fix u physiotherapy and foot care and there was joy and disappointment for the Cobourg pair of Ralph Stoffers and Janet Taylor. The joy came in winning all their three games with a total of 45 points which tied the score of Jim Caldwell and Karen Kavanaugh of Peterborough. In the event of a tie the points conceded during the tournament come into play and that is where the disappointment came as Caldwell had 27 points against compared to Stoffers 34. Caldwell and Kavanaugh had relatively easy wins in all three rounds whereas Ralph and Janet tied their first and third games winning on an extra end. A hard fought day for them and just a pity for Cobourg that they came up marginally short. 


Click here for the full result of the mixed pairs.

Click here for photos of the tournament and of the Ontario Fours