Candlepin Bowling: Only In Massachusetts

Only In Massachusetts is an occasional series where Patch tries to find answers to questions about life in Massachusetts. Have a question about the Bay State that needs answering? Send it to dave.copeland@patch.com.

If you grew up in Massachusetts and certain pockets of northern New England, you know there is "bowling" and there is "big ball bowling." "Big ball bowling" is what everyone outside the region calls "bowling." You grew up going to birthday where you chucked softball-sized bowling bowls at skinny pins, and, after the last cartoon ran on Saturday morning, you may have watched a few strings of "Candlepin Bowling" on Channel 5.

Candlepin bowling is "the most challenging of all indoor sports," according to the Massachusetts Bowling Association. As proof, the association notes no one has ever bowled a perfect 300 in candlepin: the record score is 245 for men and 196 for women, and most competitive candlepin bowlers average 110.

"I was always prejudiced in that I felt the large ball seemed to be an easier game," Don Gillis, who hosted "Candlepin Bowling" on WCVB, told The Wall Street Journal when the final episode was taped in 1996.

But it's also a dying sport. The Massachusetts Bowling Association lists 23 bowling alleys with 406 candlepin lanes in Massachusetts, down from 40 alleys just 10 years ago. There are alleys in New Hampshire and another 12 in Maine, according to the International Candlepin Bowling Association. There's also an alley with four lanes in Albany, NY. The Association's website does not make clear if all of these alleys survived, or will survive, the coronavirus pandemic.

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Depending on whom you ask, the first game of candlepin bowling was played in Worcester in 1881. The inventors tinkered with the size of the pins, the material used to make the balls and the rules, including the decision to not remove pins that had been knocked down, until they came up with a game that looks a lot like the candlepin bowling still being played today. The game hit its peak in popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, when machines replaced pin boys to set up the pins.

Close to 70 million Americans bowl at least once a year, but the number league bowlers — the regular customers who once were the backbone of the industry — has steadily declined. Blame more entertainment options, longer commutes and work hours and the stigma of the local alley being "the poor man's country club." It's still a $10 billion industry, but an industry analysis published last year says the trends in the post-COVID world favor bigger centers with other entertainment options over the smaller, local bowling centers.

And WCVB hasn't aired "Candlepin Bowling" since 1996, despite a letter-writing campaign by (mostly) older viewers who tried to save the show from cancellation. The 32-lane Fairway Bowling in Natick, which hosted "Candlepin Bowling" for every episode of its 38-year run, closed in 2011.

The alley's owner, Marilyn Onorato, was considered a holdout: She kept her alley no-frills and bowling-only when competitors started installing video games and applying for liquor licenses to prop up slumping revenues in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

"When they took away our show, everything changed," the then 78-year-old Onorato told The New York Times on the alley's last day of business. "Nobody had anything to compete for anymore."

Dave Copeland is Patch's regional editor for Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).