Are the short, cold days of winter giving you and your kids the winter blues? We’ve got the cure with our ultimate guide to Bowling in Massachusetts! What better family activity to get you out of the house during the long winter months. We assembled some basic background information as well as a map of all the venues across the state in this post. Get out there and bowl yourself a turkey (that’s three strikes in a row!).

Candlepin or Ten Pin?

It’s rare that you will find anything other than ten pin bowling outside New England (and Canada), so we consider ourselves lucky to have the choice when it comes to the type of bowling. While the two are similar in that the goal is to knock down ten pins using a urethane ball, candlepin and ten pin are quite different when you compare the size of the balls, the shape of the pins, and the rules of the game. We won’t go into all of these here, but remember, they are different games.

The big decision here is which size bowling ball is best suited for your kids? If they are on the young side, candlepin may be the best option as the weight of the ten pin ball might be too much for them. You may also want to consider finding a lane that offers bumper bowling. This is where temporary bumpers are installed on your lane to prevent any gutter balls and give your kids a much better chance at success.

Where to Bowl?

Would you believe it if we told you there were over 100 bowling alleys in Massachusetts alone? We put together an interactive map of over 90 bowling venues for you to browse and locate one near you.

Shoes

We’ll probably never fully understand the fascination, but kids seem to love bowling shoes. We know it can’t be the comfort level and assume it’s something to do with the slick bottoms that allow you to slide on the wooden floor, but whatever it is, these are a big hit. Pick them up at the counter and lace up.

Finding the Right Bowling Ball

If you are going candlepin, you most likely don’t have any options here as they usually just have one type of bowling ball. In ten pin, the options are numerous. You may want to ask the clerk if they have any lightweight balls for kids behind the counter. This could be a good time to break out your knowledge of kinetics to enlighten your kids on the behavior of different weighted bowling balls or you could just tell them that you probably want to get the heaviest ball that you can comfortably handle.

Scoring

While my wife tells me the scoring system in bowling is simple, I beg to differ. This is why I look for bowling alleys with automatic scoring so I don’t have to worry about it. Most alleys have these installed, so there is a good chance you’ll be in luck. Just input the names of your bowlers and let the computer tell you when to bowl and keep score for you. This is one of the few times when I actually like computers. If you are going old-school with paper and pencil, make sure someone in your group knows how to score or get some instructions from an employee at the venue.

Technique

Don’t expect your kids to start out with a full right to left hook to score a strike every time. Most kids should start with the under-hand, between the legs throwing technique until they have the strength to use just one arm. There are some good lessons to learn around lining up in the same spot, targeting where you throw using the lane markers, and realizing that you do not need to throw the ball 100 mile per hour to knock down quite a few pins. Bowling is a great family sport to get you out of the house during these winter months. Good luck and have fun!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 3:59 am and is filed under Uncategorized. If you use RSS, you can subscribe to the RSS feed , or if you would rather receive an e-mail, please subscribe to the e-mail in the lower right hand corner of this page. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.