THE WORLD'S ONLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO THE BUSINESS OF BOWLING
CONTENTS
VOL 19.2
PUBLISHER & EDITOR Scott Frager frager@bowlingindustry.com Skype: scottfrager
DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Chris Holmes
6 THE ISSUE AT HAND
26 CENTER STAGE
Bright Lights, Big Cities Electrify Bowling
BOWLMOR TIMES SQUARE
By Scott Frager
A photo tour
holmes@bowlingindustry.com
MANAGING EDITOR Fred Groh groh@bowlingindustry.com
EDITORIAL CONSULTANT Gregory Keer keer@bowlingindustry.com
OFFICE MANAGER Patty Heath heath@bowlingindustry.com
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45TH PBA T.O.C. … Awards at Illinois State BPA… Pezzano honored… A California city returns to bowling …
32 THIS IS BVL Remembering Why
CONTRIBUTORS Harry J. Balzer Patty Heath Lydia Rypcinski
Veterans Day – a yearly trip to Arlington
SPECIAL PROJECTS Jackie Fisher fisher@bowlingindustry.com
ART DIRECTION & PRODUCTION Designworks
34 OFF THE CLOCK A Cautionary Tale
13 OPERATIONS
One installer’s eyewitness account
The Genesis of Bumper Bowling The “fathers” recall the “next big thing.”
www.dzynwrx.com (818) 735-9424
FOUNDER Allen Crown (1933-2002)
13245 Riverside Dr., Suite 501 Sherman Oaks, CA 91423 (818) 789-2695(BOWL) Fax (818) 789-2812 info@bowlingindustry.com
www.BowlingIndustry.com
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18 INTERNATIONAL REPORT
46 REMEMBER WHEN 1947 LIFE magazine highlights the ever-expanding bowling palace.
India’s entrepreneurial spirit Trailblazers establish bowling in a land of 1.2 billion
36 Showcase 38 Datebook 38 Classifieds
HOTLINE: 888-424-2695 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: One copy of International Bowling Industry is sent free to every bowling center, independently owned pro shop and collegiate bowling center in the U.S., and every military bowling center and pro shop worldwide. Publisher reserves the right to provide free subscriptions to those individuals who meet publication qualifications. Additional subscriptions may be purchased for delivery in the U.S. for $50 per year. Subscriptions for Canada and Mexico are $65 per year, all other foreign subscriptions are $80 per year. All foreign subscriptions should be paid in U.S. funds using International Money Orders. POSTMASTER: Please send new as well as old address to International Bowling Industry, 13245 Riverside Drive, Suite 501, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423 USA. If possible, please furnish address mailing label. Printed in U.S.A. Copyright 2010, B2B Media, Inc. No part of this magazine may be reprinted without the publisher’s permission.
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February 2011
THE ISSUE AT HAND
It’s Up to You, New York! Last month we devoted most of the magazine’s editorial space to some of the people and personalities that make up the bowling business. We told their stories. This issue, we weave our way into some of the places that best epitomize what bowling is all about. Beginning with our cover story: If a picture is worth a thousand words, just imagine the value of the photos published of Tom Shannon’s latest masterpiece. The purported $25 million Bowlmor Time Square opened up this past January in all its 3-level, 50-lane, 90,000 square foot glory. New York City has become a battleground, of sorts, with some of the biggest, brightest and boldest centers around. No one would have guessed 15 years ago that the Big Apple would offer at least one bowling center in every borough. Until Lucky Strike opened in Manhattan a couple of years ago, the original Bowlmor shared a mutual lock with AMF Chelsea Piers and what is now 300 AMF. Back then, real estate prices kept all but deepest pockets out of the game. Today, with the current economic climate, it’s slightly less than miraculous that any new bowling construction is happening at all, let alone at the rapid pace we’ve been seeing.
And frankly, New York is not the only major metropolis seeing growth these days. Take a read this month about the largest city in the second largest country on the planet– Mumbai, India. With a mind-boggling population of 14 million, the city that used to be known as Bombay recently saw a new bowling center built by two movie theater chain giants. With Brunswick’s help, India’s PVR and Thailand’s Major Cineplex have joint ventured into a new and potentially staggering series of new bowling developments. Now stop and take a moment to ponder that India has a population of 1.2 billion and has fewer than 75 bowling centers and 1,000 lanes in the country. Now, what’s the population per lane bed there? I contemplated doing the math for you but decided not to ruin your fun. Pick a city, any major metropolitan area in the U.S.– Los Angeles, Miami, San Diego, Dallas, Washington DC and you’ll see new bowling developments. Granted, this isn’t a panacea and I don’t want to discount the real problems and concerns we face in our trade, but it does bode well and provide a glimmer of hope on which to hang our hats. As the song Mr. Sinatra so elegantly and eloquently sang, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere. It’s up to you New York, New York.” – SCOTT FRAGER, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR frager@bowlingindustry.com
THIS MONTH AT www.BowlingIndustry.com IBI’s got back … issues that is! Access to back issues is just a click away. It’s FREE! It’s INTERACTIVE! Need a name or contact info for one of our advertisers? Need a refresher on one of our past stories? Looking for trends or just want to roam? This is the place. Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. … We’ve got you covered!
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PBA Press Room Honors Pezzano The PBA has ensured that bowling scribe Chuck Pezzano will always have a presence on the Pro Bowlers Tour, whether or not he is attending a tournament. As of the 2011 Tournament of Champions, the tour’s press room is now the Chuck Pezzano PBA Press Room. The drop-down option on pba.com/corporate/pressroom also bears Pezzano’s name. “It’s a pretty nice honor,” Pezzano said after PBA informed him of the change. “It came as a complete surprise.” Pezzano, a valued and regular IBI contributor, has reported on bowling for more than a half-century, including his weekly bowling column in The Record in Hackensack, N.J. Before that, he was a PBA charter member. Off the lanes, he supervised PBA’s East Region for 20 years and was PBA Hall of Fame secretary for almost as long. PBA CEO and Commissioner Fred Schreyer said recognizing Pezzano in this way would serve “as an inspiration for all future bowling journalists.”
BOWLING RETURNS TO TURLOCK A planned 34-lane center is bringing bowling back to Turlock, Calif., after a 13-year absence. Ten Pin Fun Center will offer a sports bar and grill, an arcade, a laser tag facility and outdoor bocce ball courts in addition to bowling, said developer Jim Theis. “This is not your dad’s bowling alley,” Theis told Patty Guerra of The Modesto Bee. “We’re going to eliminate the comment that there’s nothing to do in Turlock.” Ten Pin Fun Center will sit at the intersection of West Monte Vista Ave. and Crowell Road, kiddycorner from the California State UniversityStanislaus campus. Theis said he considered the location of the old Gardens Bowl during site selection. However, he rejected it because he thought neighborhood children wouldn’t be able to get there easily. Gardens Bowl was located just off the Golden State Boulevard, west of the university. It closed in 1997. Ten Pin Fun Center is expected to be built by local contractors and employ more than 70 people when it opens in December.
Keslar Rejoins Jayhawk Team Jayhawk Bowling Supply has announced that on January 1, Gerry Keslar returned as their Brunswick Capital Equipment Sales Specialist for Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, excluding St. Louis. Keslar is a longtime veteran of the bowling business in the Midwest first as an accomplished bowler and then as a mechanic, resurfacer, installer and pro shop specialist. Previously, Gerry served as National Sales Manager for the Ebonite Vantech Automatic Scoring and Capital Equipment division.
Community Bowling Moves Marvelanes The quartet that owns City Limits, a 24-lane family entertainment center in Mason, Mich., just doubled the number of lanes under its management. Jim Cicoreli, Greg and Val Orlando, and Bob Maynard purchased Marvelanes from Community Bowling Centers Inc. The 24-lane center, located in nearby East Lansing, was one of a dozen that CBC owned in metropolitan Detroit prior to the sale. The new owners plan to renovate Marvelanes to better align it with City Limits, which features a restaurant and beach volleyball court. Sandy Hansell and Associates brokered the transaction. 8
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Recycling a Center Is there life after the closing of a center? The answer can be YES. That is what Peter Kenter, correspondent for Canadian website, Daily Commercial News, found in talking to Mehran Nouri one of the partners who was converting a one-storey bowling center to a medical office complex in the Downsview area of north Toronto. Nouri is a big proponent of recycling and he wanted to reclaim the hardwood bowling lanes. “It was a shame to just rip them and send them to the garbage bin.“ Dismantling the lanes was not easy as the screwdriver, Number 18 Robertson, used to remove the screws is difficult if not impossible to find. He had to make his own just to remove the wood. Kenter wrote: “He’s pricing the wood at between $20 and $50 per linear foot, but says he’s more interested in seeing the wood go to a good home than making a killing on it.” Nouri says, “I’d be happy to see them repurposed into a nice project and just break even.” No one likes to see a center close but for those who take the time to recycle, there can be life after closing.
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“ JACKPOT BOWLING” HOME MEMORIALIZED An engraved plaque, an old bowling trophy, and a pair of red-and-blue bowling shoes stand in silent tribute to a long-gone era at a discount furniture store in Glendale, N.Y. Bob’s Discount Furniture now occupies the building that housed Woodhaven Lanes from 1959 to 2008. Store owner Bob Kaufman wanted to commemorate the 60-lane center, which hosted TV’s “Jackpot Bowling” in 1959 and 1960, so he set up the display. “You’ve got to be cognizant of the specialness of the place,” Kaufman told the NY Daily News. The plaque recognizes Woodhaven as “more than a place to bowl; it was a gathering place that provided fun, support and stability for generations of families and friends.” “Clearly, [Woodhaven Lanes] had a warm spot in lots of people’s hearts,” Kaufman said.
1990 Bowling Massacre Revisited CNN’s Anderson Cooper featured a decades old bowling massacre in a segment of his show “AC-360” on January 18. The 1990 Las Cruces mass murder of four and the injuring of three others including young children during a robbery at a small family-owned center has yet to be solved. The assailants herded two female employees and two teenage girls into the business office and demanded money from the safe. After grabbing $5,000, they ordered the four to the ground and began shooting each of them. The center mechanic and his two young daughters came in at that point and were also shot. Miraculously three, a young 12-year-old and the two female employees, survived. One of the two suspects is said to be in his late 50s or early 60s now, and the other in his late 40s or early 50s. America’s Most Wanted show “Fugitives” has also highlighted this event and requests information be directed to its Hotline 1-800-CRIME-TV.
Schools, Bowling and Exercise Park Lanes Family Entertainment Center in Hillsboro, Oregon has found the best way to garner new business is to go out and cultivate it according to The Hillsboro Argus. The center has been loaning out its equipment for three years to local elementary schools. The plastic pins and lane mats are placed in the multi-purpose room, heavy rubber balls with finger holes are passed out and the bowling begins. Working with fourth graders at Ladd Acres Elementary School, the PE teacher put them through their paces with a half hour of bowling interspersed with other exercises, based on the number of pins knocked down: 10 pushups or jumping jacks for 10 pins or laps for fewer pins. A field trip to Park Lanes culminates the session with an hour of free bowling. Everybody wins! 10
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PEOPLEWATCHING Kegel has announced the promotions of Gus Falgien to Vice President of Sales and Erin Wall to Marketing Coordinator. Since 1987, Falgien has held positions with both the PBA and WPBA Tours, has worked as a mechanic for AMF and Brunswick and is currently a member of the WTBA Technical Committee. Hired by Kegel in 2002, Gus Falgien Falgien will now lead the International and Domestic Sales Team. Wall, a Rutgers Business School graduate with a Bachelors degree in Marketing and a minor in Psychology, will help meld the knowledge of Kegel’s staff of technicians, chemists, coaches and bowlers to refine its Erin Wall marketing approach. Former Women’s International Bowling Congress Executive Director Roseann Kuhn has been elected to the USBC Hall of Fame along with four-time USBC Open Championships winner Jeff Richgels and four-time Professional Women Bowlers Association champion Cheryl Robinson. The induction ceremony will take place July 1 at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. Kuhn joined the staff of the Women’s International Bowling Congress in 1974 as a field representative. She worked her way up to executive director in 1996, a position she held until the formation of USBC in 2005 when she became USBC’s Chief Tournament Officer. “I’m really humbled by this, just really humbled,” said Roseann Kuhn Kuhn, who was instrumental in the merger of WIBC, the American Bowling Congress, Young American Bowling Alliance and USA Bowling to create USBC. “You don’t get where you are without the help of a lot of people, and so many people have helped me along the way.”
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Bowl Goes Ga-Ga for Gaga CHARITY BEGINS Papio What does Lady Gaga, known for her AT THE LANES outlandish wardrobe, wear when she goes Two totally different bowling centers 1,500 miles apart helped brighten the holidays for the less fortunate last December. New Jerseyans enjoyed music, food and bowling at Jersey City’s Barrow Mansion Dec. 21 while raising more than $4,300 for the local food co-op. The mansion-cum-community center, once home to a Jersey City mayor, boasts two manually set bowling lanes that were built in the early 1900s. A day earlier, the Koffee Kup League at the modern AMF Country Lanes in San Antonio, Texas, presented 200 new toys and a $1,285 check to the police department’s “Blue Santa” to distribute to needy area children. Koffee Kup bowlers have donated more than $10,000 to “Blue Santa” over the past decade. They also raise money for other charities. “I thought if these women can spend money bowling and eating lunch, they can do something for the community,” said league president Alice Crawford.
bowling? “Black tights and knee-high boots, a white T-shirt and a black leather jacket,” said Derek Farrell, who booked a private party for Gaga and her entourage at his Papio Bowl in Omaha, Neb., Dec. 27. Farrell had no idea the reservation was for Lady Gaga when he accepted it. “Someone called the week before Christmas asking about reserving the center for a private party of 25 or so,” Farrell said. “I quoted a price of $500, and they gave me a credit card number. “They asked for permission to close the place to the public from 1-3 p.m. that day,” he continued. “I figured it was someone pretty important if they were asking for that.” Farrell said that Gaga, aka Stefani Germanotta who was spending Christmas with her boyfriend, Luc Carl’s family in Omaha, was “super nice and really witty.” “But I don’t know if she ever bowled before,” Farrell said. “I think she had a 57.” Farrell has been besieged with calls from celebrity publications like Life & Style Weekly since news leaked about Gaga’s visit, all asking for details and pictures. Unfortunately, Farrell can provide only the former. “We couldn’t take any pictures,” he said. “They even asked that we shut down our security cameras while she was here.”
BOWLING FOR SOUP HEADLINES T.O.C. The 45th PBA Tournament of Champions had its own halftime performance a la the Super Bowl with the Grammy-Nominated American rock/punk band, Bowling For Soup, performing its newest song—“Saturday Night”--during a live ABC telecast Jan. 22 at Red Rock Lanes in Las Vegas. This was the first time in fourteen years that the tournament had been televised. BFS lead singer Jaret Riddick attended the 2010 PBS Tournament of Champions, witnessing the historic victory by Kelly Kulick from the front row. “As you can imagine, we’ve done our share of bowling alley appearances,” said Reddick. “None have been as exciting for me as attending last year’s Tournament of Champions as a fan. It was amazing to watch history being made when Chris (Barnes) took on Kelly Kulick in the championship match and to witness the first woman ever winning a major PBA event. “When the PBA invited us to perform this year, we jumped at the chance and are genuinely excited to participate in this major sports event.” “Bowling For Soup and PBA are teaming up to provide pro bowling’s version of the Super Bowl halftime show for the live ABC national
television audience,” said Mike Jakubowski, PBS Cross Marketing and Multimedia Specialist. “Bowling fans already have a million reasons to watch the Tournament of Champions, Bowling For Soup’s new single release on the show provides one more great reason to watch.”
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ISBPA AWARDS AND ELECTION OF OFFICERS Illinois State BPA used its Annual Meeting in November to honor Art Hartman, Camelot Bowl; Bob Stubler, I.V. Super Bowl; Ron Ramza, Bowl Mor Lanes; and John Dill for their outstanding contributions to the Illinois bowling community. Art Hartman (right) received ISBPA’s highest honor, the Louis Petersen award for his career dedication to the sport of bowling from Tom Sims. Hartman is currently president of Murex Services, ISBPA’s for-profit subsidiary and executive director of the Southern Illinois BPA. Bob Stubler was awarded the P.F. Bosco Award of Merit in part for his leadership in helping to legislate “slip and fall” liability protection for proprietors with the passage of the Bowling Center Safety Act in 2010. Ron Ramza and Jon Dill were recognized for their work with youth bowling. Ramza’s work with the “AllStar Shoot-out” garnered more than $8,000 in annual scholarship awards and the President’s Award. Dill’s work to develop Fox Valley-area youth was highlighted with the ISBPA’s Award of Recognition. At that time new officers were elected by a membership in attendance which was 40% higher than the previous year. Lyle Zikes, Beverly Lanes, Arlington Heights (Chicagoland BPA) is the president for the 2011-12 term. Vic President is Alan Nordman, Town & Country Lanes, Mt. Morris (Northern Illinois BPS); Secretary is Keith Tadevich, Oak Forest Bow, Oak Forrest (Chicagoland BPA); Treasurer is Jeff Johnson, The 4 Seasons Bowl, Freeport (Northern Illinois BPA); and Sergeant-at-Arms is Bob Stubler, IV Super Bowl, Peru (Illinois Valley BPA). “I believe the changes to the meeting format contributed to the success of the event,” said Tom Sims, ISBPA outgoing president. “Reducing the meeting program by one full day and having an intensive day devoted to only education and networking, along with the decision to provide these events as a benefit of ISBPA membership with no additional fees to attendees, made this event a resounding success. It was nice to see full rooms and new faces at our meeting,” added Sims.
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OPERATIONS
BUMPER CROP The fathers of bumper bowling recall the “next big thing” of the 1980s. n the way to the airport Jamie Brooks was thinking about seven hours of videotape he had seen and how great the kids thought bowling would be. Brooks was then, about 1982, chair of the advertising committee of the National Bowling Council. NBC had retained a Detroit specialist in youth-marketing research called Playlabs, and Brooks had sat through the videotapes of two or three focus groups in which kids were asked what they thought about bowling. “All the kids thought bowling would be absolutely fantastic,” Brooks recollects. But when they went off to a local bowling center to try out the game and the ball kept going in the gutter, they said it was too hard. Brooks returned to home base in Houston thinking, “Man, that’s a problem – we’re never going to get those kids unless we can figure out a way of keeping it on the lane.” The next time he stopped in at his center in Conroe, TX, he talked to his manager there, PBA member Skee Foremsky. Brooks put it to him. “Skee, let’s figure out something we can do to keep the balls from going in the gutter.” A week later, Foremsky called him and said, “We’ve got it.”
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Foremsky and the center mechanic had taken cigar boxes, filled them with concrete, and spaced four or five of them down the gutter. A short piece of PVC pipe was placed vertically in each cigar box, connecting to PVC pipe that ran down the gutter and several inches above it. Halfway down the lane, Foremsky had rigged a cross-lane pipe and a cardboard bowling pin called
Mr. Pin. If the ball were thrown straight down the lane, it would hit the pin and cause it to spin. Brooks called Dallas proprietor Phil Kinzer. “My thing was bowling,” Brooks says, “not selling. I’ve tried selling. I don’t like doing that.” Kinzer was good at selling. But the PVC pipe arrangement was too cumbersome to be practical. Kinzer, too, had been thinking about the problem. He took his son, Phil Jr., to his center one day. Dad had wanted to bowl when he was a kid but hadn’t been able to. His son would not be shorted. “I got him a bowing ball with no holes in it. I was going to teach him how to just two-hand it and shove it down the middle of the lane. “Well, I got a phone call – we hadn’t opened yet – and I went away for five or 10 minutes. [When I came back] my little boy said, ‘Daddy, let’s go skating.’ ‘Skating? Why do you want to go skating?’ He said, ‘I can’t do it. I don’t like it. I keep throwing balls in the gutter. I don’t like it.’ I said, ‘I’m going to work with you. When you start rolling this ball right, you’re going to knock down pins.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Daddy, I’d like it now if you just get rid of the gutters forever.’” Kinzer had not been thinking about the problem very seriously. His son’s remark was an epiphany. He’d just had carpet installed and the cardboard carpet rolls were still on the premises. He quickly retrieved three, taped them together and
OPERATIONS
FOUNDING FATHERS
put them in the gutter. Phil Jr. began bouncing his ball off the tubes. A man to spot an opportunity, Kinzer thought about the 1,000 kids from child care centers he had that summer. He located some people who made carpet rolls and asked how long a roll could be. “We can make it any length you want.” “I want them 60 feet long.” “Who’s gonna carry it?” He decided 12 feet was more like it. Kinzer had them made and put five down the length of the gutter. Then he made the rounds of Dallas child care centers, carrying photos of the gutter tubes. Every child care center he called on signed or re-signed with him, he says.
Alex Wortman and Zena Sheinberg.
Remo Pichietti
Phil Kinzer 14
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The carpet tubes were the first in a long series of modifications and improvements in the original idea. Kinzer himself soon made a change. He says he wasn’t able to interest any tire manufacturers in the idea, despite his vision of “Firestone” spelled out on rubber bumpers down the lane. He turned to a waterbed manufacturer instead. Cardboard tubes were out, gold tubes made of waterbed fabric were in. “I wasn’t thinking about getting into it [bumpers] really hard and heavy,” he relates, “I just wanted it for my places,” Jupiter Lanes, a 24-laner, and Grove Country Lanes, a 32-lane house, both in Dallas. So things went for a year or so, until a letter arrived from Remo Picchietti at DBA telling him to cease and desist. A DBA product called Glancer was much the same – except that the waterbedfabric tubes were blue. The kit was sold to proprietors along with a small air compressor. Picchietti doesn’t recall what the product sold for, but says it was “fairly inexpensive.” The Glancer had been invented outside the bowling industry. Alex Wortman was an educational psychologist who got into his “deflection device” project, as he calls it, because his girlfriend invited him to a local Ann Arbor, MI bowling center one day. Zena Sheinberg was a special education teacher who wanted a chance to spend time with Wortman during the regular workday. She thought also that he might have some valuable input for the student field trips she was conducting to the center. “Nobody was getting any pinfall, just gutterball after gutterball,” Wortman told us when we discussed the Glancer with him for our July 2002 issue. It seemed like a waste of time and money. Why not just roll balls across the floor of the school gym? “It’s more than that,” Sheinberg told him. “It’s a whole social thing. They’re learning to come to a center and mix with people. It isn’t just about knocking over pins.” But Wortman thought the game should be part of it. Two weeks after his first visit to the center, he re-appeared during one of the students’ field trips and got the proprietor’s agreement to try something. “I guess I wanted to make it more dramatic,” he told us. “I could have gone, I guess, at a time when nobody was there and said, ‘Could we try out this idea and see if it works?’ but I was convinced it would.” Without any announcement and with the assistance of a couple of people, he put carpet tubes in the gutter. And dramatic it was. “This one kid had miraculously knocked over four pins and her second shot was heading right for the gutter. It hit a carpet tube, caromed off, and she came up with a clean spare. People started cheering.” Wortman had his epiphany, too. Two years later, with carpet tubes succeeded by dryer duct hose, which was succeeded by inflatable tubes, he had a prototype. A patent in his and Sheinberg’s names, 4,330,122, was issued May 18, 1982. Remo Picchietti recalls a telephone call from a friend in Michigan. The friend had just come from a center in Ann Arbor where some guy had kids bowling and tubes in the gutter to block gutterballs. “I kind of laughed and said, ‘That’s kind of stupid. What’s it all about?’ ‘Well, the guy and his wife are child psychologists and they’re trying
OPERATIONS Carom Bowling Game, R.M. Conklin ETAL Patent # 3,401,933 Issued: Sept 17, 1968
Drawings in the Conklin patent for the articulated gutter in carom bowling.
to find a game for them they can play and [where people] could show some appreciation for what [the kids] do.’ “I thought about it for a while, [thought] that sounds pretty interesting. I got on an airplane that afternoon from Chicago and flew over to Michigan and met with these two people and made a deal with them. I bought the rights to the patent. They got the royalties out of it, of course.” Glancers had been on the market for some time when DBA introduced them formally to the industry at the BPAA convention in Hawaii in 1994. At first, Picchietti says, proprietors would call to tell him he was destroying the game. “The second call I got was placing an order to buy.” All told, the Glancer was “an immediate success.” Kinzer complied with Pichietti’s letter to cease and desist and bought Glancers.
One Saturday morning about 1987, a grandfather and retired Texas Instruments engineer walked in to Kinzer’s center. The man’s name was John Chandler and his job was to obtain and protect TI patents. He told Kinzer
there had to be a better way of doing what Kinzer was already calling bumpers. “You’re telling me,” Kinzer replied. “This is a pain – drag them out, pull them up, put them on the side, patch holes in them.” “Why don’t you come over to my house tonight and we’ll build something. I’ve got an idea,” said Chandler. The first permanent bumpers were built in Chandler’s garage, Kinzer reports. They were problematical because they’d have to sell for about $800 a lane, and Kinzer believed no proprietor would spend that much for something so ugly. “It looked like a bowling lane had braces on its teeth.” But an evening’s bowling
Marvelanes East Lansing, Michigan (24 lanes) We congratulate Jim Cicorelli, Greg Orlando, Val Orlando and Bob Maynard on their purchase of this fine center and thank Community Bowling Centers for trusting us to handle the sale. We wish them all the best in the future.
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OPERATIONS persuaded Kinzer that he was the only one bothered by their ungainly appearance. Chandler brought another TI engineer, Bobby Beene, on board to begin seriously developing the bumpers. Every three or four days there would be another version to try out on Kinzer’s lanes. At first, the bumpers worked on ball bearings – 2,000 per lane; at the end, they were articulated by simple brackets. In the beginning, weatherstripping for the rebound surface; later, extruded nylon. Chandler and Beene eventually filed for a patent for “A bowling alley bumper system in which an elongated bumper is mounted alongside and parallel to each alley gutter, and in which there are provided movable supports that permit the extension of the bumpers to guard the gutters when guarding is desired and retraction of the bumpers to expose the gutters when normal alley operation is desired.” Patent 4,900,024 was issued Feb. 13, 1990. Wortman’s patent covered anything that goes in the gutter; Chandler and Beene’s applied to anything positioned above the gutter. “They had ground level down to Hell and we had ground level all the way up to Heaven,” Kinzer says.
Still he was not thinking about going into serious business with bumpers when Chandler and Beene suggested he approach AMF president Phil Nisely, with whom Kinzer was on friendly terms. The three went out to see him. Kinzer says AMF immediately wanted the device for its AMF-branded centers and wanted to sell them across the industry as well. They did not want to invest in R&D on the gadget and they did not want to manufacture it; they wanted the three pitchmen to do that.
“Of course, Bobby is sitting there saying, ‘We can do it, we can do it.’ And I don’t have a clue how.” The next day he met Dennis Lord, a brother-in-law of Beene’s, and found out how. Lord owned a manufacturing company. “He could manufacture anything.” And Rotex, Lord’s Irving, TX (Dallas) company, did. When the Glancer faded from the market, Rotex was manufacturing 100% of bumpers for bowling, according to Kinzer. In the mid-’90s AMF bought Chandler and Beene’s patent. Two years ago QubicaAMF exported bumper manufacturing to China.
Bumpers were “the next big thing” when they came along in the ’80s, but Wortman was not the first to patent a device for the purpose. That honor may go to Robert M. Conklin, Robert Torresen and Anthony J. Gretzky who patented an articulated gutter for a game of their devising they called carom bowling. In their design, the gutter could be rotated electrically so that one side of it protruded above the lane, creating a rebound surface for the ball. Brunswick bought the patent, 3,401,933, which was granted Sept. 17, 1968. Why did it take another 20 years or so before bumpers caught on? Kinzer believes the market focus was wrong. “Nobody ever thought about the kids,” he answers. “Carom bowling was Saturday night, colored pins, the strike will pay two dollars instead of one, and you can bounce it two times and get a strike. Everything was made for the adults. Nobody ever made anything for the youth market.” Kinzer isn’t striking a holier-thanthou pose, though. “If it hadn’t been for my kid, I’d a never done anything with it.” ❖ Our thanks to Gordon Murrey of GKM International for background for this story.
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INTERNATIONAL REPORT
WILL KARMA COUNT IN THE
LAND OF 1.2 BILLION? Pictured throughout the story: Brunswick equipped Blu-O Rhythm & Bowl. The first joint venture build between India’s PVR and Thailand’s Major Cineplex.
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INTERNATIONAL REPORT
In 1995, Bombay renamed itself Mumbai. It was almost a prophetic change for what has come to pass in this “ever, never changing land” of prophets and seers.
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n October, exchange4media.com, a portal for the Indian media and marketing industries, reported that Shashi Kalathil had been tapped for CEO at Galaxy Entertainment Corp. Ltd., operator of 13 bowling FECs. Kalathil pronounced himself glad to be joining his new company because of its understanding of the Indian market and that consumers “are well poised to leverage the hugely exciting and challenging shifts that India is experiencing.” Indeed. The economy of the world’s second most populous nation – at 1.2 billion – will grow 7.8% in 2011 for the second year running (7.75% in 2010), the International Monetary Fund predicts. Compare that to an IMF estimate of U.S. economic growth this year of 2.4% (2.7% in 2010). The increase is where it counts for bowling – in discretionary spending. Cell phone subscribers were up 125 million in the year to March 2009. Car purchases climbed 39% year on year at the start of 2010. International business consultant McKinsey & Co., whose 96 offices worldwide include Mumbai (Bombay) and Gurgaon in India, estimates that in 15 years, the country’s middle class – those earning (U.S.) $40,000-$200,000 – will be 40% of the population. At 600 million people, it will be considerably larger than America’s middle strata. In a demographic study five years ago, McKinsey profiled the driver of consumer goods sales as a family of five, citydwelling, with an educated head of household earning (U.S.) $20,- to $45,000 (adjusted for purchasing power parity). The family often lives in a small apartment, has money in the bank, a TV, refrigerator, and a car or motorcycle. This group was projected at 65 million in 2010. Higher up the ladder in the 2005 report were 1.2 million households who vacation abroad and own several cars. Their ranks were growing 20% per year – the same percentage increase that bowling lineage is recording, according to Ajoykaant Ruia. His company, Inco Mechel Pvt. Ltd, is agent for capital equipment for sports and leisure in the country. Ruia lays claim to bringing bowling to India. He got to know the game in Wisconsin, where he went to college in the late 1970s. Bowling was part of campus life and he and friends would troop off to local emporiums as well. “That set me off to thinking that this would be good for India.” Returning home in 1980 after taking his MBA, Ruia began a correspondence with Brunswick and AMF in ’84 and signed with the former in ’87. The companies were not the reason for the holdup. The duty on bowling equipment in the mid80s was 200%. “Obviously there were no takers. “But we kept on trying. We have an annual budget in India in which customs duties are reviewed every year. We presented it to the government – a major presentation that it was a sport and duty should be reduced. We kept on IBI
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INTERNATIONAL REPORT
making presentations, year after year. They kept on reducing until we reached about 60% in 1995. That was when the first center was sold.” Meanwhile, Ruia was trying to create a market for bowling. Bowling, as in tenpins, he would tell people, mindful that ‘bowling’ means the game of cricket to most Indians. “We had to explain what it was all about. Videos and a lot of things. It was very hard work. We even used to have meetings at 2 [a.m. with a] filmmaker [who] wanted to know something about it. The Who’s Who in India were interested in bowling.” Like many trailblazers, Ruia ended up doing most things on his own. No one was willing to commit. No one wanted to put up money. He kept dispersing his staff of 10 around the country to talk up bowling, anyway. “We went after the wrong people. We went after amusement parks. Only one amusement park ended up putting up a bowling alley, because that is not the right place to sell bowling. Hotels were not a bad bet. A couple of hotels ended up putting in bowling alleys. We tried local investors. Virtually everybody.” 20
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India’s and Ruia’s first bowling center was a cause for celebration. It had eight lanes, string pinsetters, arcade games and pool tables, and a café. Its home was Indore. The string machines were priced 30-40% lower than other pinsetters, prices that also held the duty down, Ruia notes. They were reputed to require less maintenance as well. “For a country where there are no bowling mechanics, that sounded good.”
INTERNATIONAL REPORT It was in a basement – which was not wonderful when a torrential rain flooded that part of the city and the basement proved it had leaks. After he installed two lanes of standard automatic pinsetters in Mumbai, it seemed that bowling “followed everywhere.” Houses were small – “four and six lanes kept coming up” – until what he calls “the breakthrough,” a 20-lane AMF center in Mumbai. It opened in 1999 (and closed in 2010), succeeded by a 24laner in Gurgaon in 2009. Nothing if not thorough, Ruia next moved into association work. With only 40-50 bowling centers in the country, interest in a formal association of center owners like BPAA is low. So the Bowling and Billiard Association of India (BBAI)
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accommodated people all over bowling – the bowlers and the proprietors. That national group of about 1,000, based in Delhi and founded in 1997, was supplemented by a half-dozen state associations. Two years ago, BBAI decided to confine itself to billiards, and bowling folk were diverted to the Maharashtra Tenpin Bowling Association (established 2004), serving that state, whose capital is Mumbai. MTBA and similar associations in six or seven other states run matches against each other. The winner goes to the QubicaAMF Bowling World Cup. Bowling owners who want to be more active can join the Association of Amusement Parks of India (AAPI). The organization is primarily for waterpark and amusement park operators but it has an FEC wing, some of whose members operate bowling centers. Two “limiting factors” restrict bowling growth in India, Ruia says: high prices for land and electricity. Most centers have been built up in the larger cities, whose populations range upward from 2 million, and where commercial real estate prices are among the steepest in the world. Mumbai, for instance, is among the top 10. Electricity averages almost (U.S.) 25 cents per kilowatt hour, a little higher than twice the average price here (in 2008). “And you need a lot of air conditioning in India. It’s hot [and]
INTERNATIONAL REPORT a center is quite large,” Ruia observes. Yet he reports 20% year-on-year current growth in lineage with even better prospects in smaller cities. “Land is cheaper there and people have more free time. They’re not just commuting, like in Bombay, [where] you spend half your life commuting,” he laughs. “So they have more disposable time and income.” Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai – all are major cities – have three to four centers each, with four to eight lanes except two Delhi centers with 12 and 24. Smaller towns such as Aurangabad, Kota, Raipur, Udaipur, Jabalpur, Amravati, Jalgaon, and Pune have one center each with four lanes on average. Ten new centers rise in the country in a typical year. “The people love bowling,” says Ruia, “and given a good price they would be bowling away.” No one believes that more strongly than PVR, India’s leading movie theater chain. The company built India’s first multiplex theater in 1997. Currently it operates 116 screens in 27 theaters in 14 major cities and hosted 17 million moviegoers in 2008-09. When PVR isn’t showing movies, it is making and distributing them via PVR Pictures, a subsidiary of which it holds 60%. In the fall of 2008, PVR’s managing director, Ajay Bijli, was traveling in Bangkok and dropped in at a bowling center. Bijli is an Indian national bowling champion who represented his country in the 1989 World Tenpin Championships. His busman’s holiday precipitated a meeting between PVR and Major Cineplex Group of Thailand. The latter, like PVR, is more diversified than the name suggests. Thailand’s leading movie theater chain, Major Cineplex, owns bowling FECs, about 38 of them, totaling more than 500 lanes. It has been running bowling centers for 13 years. Interest in a joint venture of the companies “was, I think, quite mutual,” says Puneet Sharma, vice president of the undertaking, dubbed Blu-O Entertainment Ltd. PVR owns 51% of the JV.
Under the arrangement, PVR is importing an upscale Major Cineplex bowling concept called Blu-O. Sharma describes it as “nightclub”-like. “‘Blu-O’ signifies an air bubble trapped inside water. The idea is that [you] come to Blu-O to really relieve yourself of all stress.” The first property, a 24-lane unit, opened about 18 months ago in Gurgaon, where PVR is headquartered. Blu-O Entertainment is planning a total of 100 bowling lanes by mid-May 2011, 300 in three years, says Sharma. Along with the lanes, the units will have ice skating rinks, karaoke lounges, video gaming, Platinum Lounges for private dining and in most locations, a full-service restaurant and bar – all upscale. For five years, Blu-O will expand its FEC portfolio in the largest Indian cities, he says. After that, it might look into so-called grade 2 cities with populations around 7 million. Sharma says locations in malls are especially appealing. The first Blu-O is located in one. As Ruia indicates, malls provide built-in visibility for bowling: “You’re going for a film or shopping, and you see the sport and you try it.” But Sharma adds that because PVR is also in the movie business, Blu-O could also look at standalone units that combine cinema and bowling. ❖
Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Brent Perrier and Gary Smith of Brunswick Bowling for their help with the photos within this story. IBI
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bowl. n a c u ces yo of bowling a l p e h oh, t a pair your way! … b e r a r a u G es Sq rk minute? e on r ’ m i u T o s y e ; o Desk or Lan in a New Y e m ith o l h w w S o n B o n s i t t w e i t a s o Vi labor urateur, the si ated Downt l o e c e s n i o enius ef and resta d Want t the richly st g l a i r u d ch rene rom nt an of e f p e n e s r m w e t e o o n t i n h e s ative, id Burke, re for fun, exc cornucopia e r c s ’ annon rtise of Dav who venture portation a h S m To trans best. ❖ y expe ered those r d a o i n r i l e u p ff rk’s the c have o imaginative New Yo 26
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Sneak through to the heyday of yesteryear at a Prohibition entry–a millinery store–to four cozy lanes.
The Subway Lanes etch the gritty underside of the Big Apple. Select a venue or set an itinerary while having a drink at the Uptown Bar or dining at Burke’s Stadium Grill – your pleasure!
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12 lanes of striking architecture and lighting, the Art Deco Lanes glitter with by-gone majesty.
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Sleek and oh, so modern, Pop New York’s six lanes is an homage to Andy Warhol and his eclectic, bohemian crowd.
BVL
REMEMBERS
W
WHY ho they are is unknown, and so they will remain except that each is known to have fought in the war whose fellow combatants he memorializes – World Wars I and II, Korea and, until 1998, Vietnam. In that year, the Unknown was identified
by DNA testing and his remains were returned to his family. Today the vault lies empty. The Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery is guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by members of the 3rd United States Infantry. There, every year on Veterans Day, a contingent from the Bowlers to Veterans League lays a wreath – one of selected organizations in America permitted to do so as part of the official national ceremony that day. The sitting American president lays the first wreath; the selected organizations follow suit. Honoring men and women who died for America in war is not the main business of BVL, although it supports other projects that can do so, too. Operation Honor Force posts
Accompanied by an unidentified escort from the Veterans of Foreign Wars (in white), members of the BVL contingent approach the Tomb of the Unknowns to lay their wreath: Joe LaSpina, Maple Family Centers, NY; Darlene Baker, USBC president and BVL chair; Paul Rumbaugh, Fredericksburg (VA) USBC; and Mary Harrar, Thunderbird Bowling Centers, PA.
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on the BVL website photos and information about past and present men and women in our armed forces as public thanks for their service. The Heroes in Our Midst campaign invites proprietors to post memorabilia at the bowling center that honor bowlers, staff and community members for their time in service. BVL’s mission is to provide recreation – as therapy at VA Medical Centers and state veterans’ homes, and as links between our men and women in uniform and home. Since its founding in 1942 as the Bowlers Victory Legion, BVL has donated more than $35 million. That is what it does. Why it does is never far from the minds of BVL board members, proprietors and bowlers around the nation who support BVL. And that is why, last year, as it does every year, BVL stood at attention at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day. ❖
The BVL contingent at Arlington National Cemetery in 2010. At left is Eagle Scout Alfred Russo, Jr. from Maple Family Centers, NY, who served as flag bearer; Bill Little, Thunderbird Bowling Centers, PA; Joe LaSpina, Maple; Mary Harrar and Steve Faunce, Thunderbird; Michael Hall, Annapolis Bowl, MD; Darlene Baker, USBC president and BVL chair; Wally Hall, BVL board; Gailmarie Wehmeyer and Dave Zeitz, Thunderbird; John LaSpina, Maple; Sue Collier, Lord Calvert Bowling Center, MD; and Tom Dale, Nation’s Capital Area USBC, who also served as flag bearer.
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OFF THE CLOCK
By Harry J. Balzer
LIGHT AND DARK Beer comes in those colors. So did life in El Salvador some years ago, as witness this deft dramatization of a true event. 34
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was sitting in a small roadside café, in the shade of an almond tree, to have lunch. I had ordered a good filete de bife con yuca fritas y tomaté and a cold beer. (Damn if I can remember the name of that beer in El Salvador.) The waiter brings out the beer, a real nice, frosty cold bottle. All with one hand he slowly sneaks the cap off, so the sudden release of pressure won’t freeze the bottle. He takes the cap edge off the bottle and hooks the rim of my glass, tilts it, softly sliding the beer down the side of the glass, gently, so there is no agitation of the beer that will turn it into a beer Slurpee. What a difference from the States, where they rip open a can, up-end it into a plastic cup and toss it at you. I was enjoying this ritual – the waiter’s left arm cocked at a right angle, with a clean white bar towel draped over a black jacket sleeve that should have been to the cleaner’s a month ago; savoring the cool shade on a hot day; the waiter finishing, turning with “Con mucho gusto,” and walking back inside the café. I was just letting that first deliciously cold mouthful of beer extinguish the dry thirst I had, when a company
OFF THE CLOCK of soldiers came marching down the street. On the other side of the narrow street, across from the café, was a playground with a high school on the far side. A group of young students leaning out of the windows, joking around, started to call out to the soldiers. My Spanish wasn’t that great. I couldn’t understand what was said, but obviously it was catcalls and insults. The sergeant or whatever, the man in command, called a halt. The soldiers did a high step and stomped to a halt, sort of like the British do. I was appreciating the breeze and this entertaining little military show. The sergeant ordered four of the soldiers out of line and talked to them. These guys were only 16 or 17 years old, real young and small. The rifles looked oversized in their hands. The students leaning out the windows were still heckling the soldiers. The sergeant shouts “Vamanos.” The four soldiers take off at a run into the school. Within a minute they come out dragging two of the boys, who had been calling out the insults. They swing them around by the arms and throw them face down in the dust of the playground, side by side. The sergeant is yelling at them. The boys put their hands on the back of their heads. The four soldiers are ringed around them, with their rifles pointing down on them. The sergeant is still yelling and now he starts to kick the one on the left in the ribs and stomach. With each kick I can see a puff of dust rise up in front of the kid’s face. I can’t understand what he is shouting. I...keep sipping my beer. The sergeant gives the kid one last kick in the head and then barks out an order. The soldier on the far right fires four shots – pop, pop, pop, pop. At first I thought he had just shot into the ground next to the kid on the right, to scare him. There was hardly any sound or impact, not like a heavy caliber 30-06. I don’t know what kind of rifle it was but it must have been smaller. The boy, who was maybe 14 or 15, recoiled and bounced very little, but humped up his back, then flopped down, and arched up on his stomach. He started to reach back with his hands, like he was trying to scratch the middle of his back, calling out for his mother, “Mom mae! Mom mae! Mom mae!” It was then that I saw the scarlet spreading out on his white school shirt, until it was solid red. The blood bubbled out of his nose and sputtered out of his mouth as he continued calling for his mother, until he choked and drowned in his own blood. I kept sipping my beer. I looked up at the school windows, full of boys and girls and teachers watching.
Looking back at the boys on the ground, I saw that the one on the left was trembling and shaking with his hands still on the back of his head. He had pissed in his pants and was crying. The sergeant had pulled his pistol out and was pointing it at the kid’s head, but then, he looked up at the school and saw all the witnesses in the windows. He slowly returned his pistol to its holster and ordered the four soldiers back into line. They started to march down the narrow street. After they passed the sergeant, he lifted his gaze to me and looked me square in the eyes. I had my glass of beer just up to my lips. I stopped. I tipped it slightly towards him and nodded my head ever so slightly. He held my look for another few seconds with a questioning stare, his hand still on his pistol. Ever so slightly, he then nodded back to me. Then turning, he marched away with his soldiers. After the soldiers were gone a good few minutes the boy on the left jumped up and bolted for the school building. The other boy laid there, dust soaking up his blood. The waiter came out with his left arm cocked, white towel in place, and my plate of filete de bife, yuca y tomaté in his right hand. He set it down in front of me. “Con mucho gusto,” turned and walked back inside the café. ❖
Harry Balzer has been a lane installer and mechanic in 20 countries. He currently lives in Brazil with his wife, Rita, where he has an installation business. We think he tells an exceptionally good yarn.
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SHOWCASE QUBICAAMF SUPPLY LINE EMAIL CLUB
TECH-LINE INTRODUCES PRIMAL TV4
CENTER DESIGN
SOCKS
Register to receive Qubica AMF’s monthly Supply Line E-newsletter and you could be the winner of a $100 Visa gift card! Log onto http://www.TheEmailClub.com/QubicaAMF and register today for a chance to win. One lucky person who registers between February 1 and February 28, 2011 will be selected from a random drawing to be held on March 4, 2011. See website for details.
Dynamic Designs & Associates is a trailblazer in bowling centers and FECs. We offer interior and exterior design, logo development, architectural services, business plans, renderings, and more to make your facility a standout. Your remod or ground-up project deserves Dynamic Designs & Associates. For more information, call 866-644-5892 or visit www.DynamicDesignsInc.net.
Socks from Berry-Cutler with unique and personalized designs set the industry standard. Bowlers love the added value and safety. Proprietors love the instant profits. And prices start at just 35 cents per pair! For more information, call 708-410-2500, email info@bowlingsocks.com, or visit us at www.bowlingsocks.net.
CARD READER
BOWLING PARTS
A2 MODIFICATION KIT
STAIN REMOVER
Intercard’s new reader, the iNano, is a compact, wireless, easy-to-use reader at an economical price. The iNano complies with international standards and is one of the most cost effective units being offered to the amusement industry. For more information, call 800-732-3770 or 314-275-8066, email sales@intercardinc.com, or visit www.intercardinc.com.
ZOT is pleased to introduce its new Accelerator Relay Box Modification Kit for Brunswick A2 Pinsetters — a kit that replaces all the hard soldered relays in the original box while retaining the original sheet metal enclosure and connectors. The new P.C. Board-based system from ZOT includes a 10-AMP re-settable breaker designed to limit motor overload damage caused by ball-jams. For more information, call 800-525-8116 or e-mail sales@zotpinsetter.com. 36
Tech-Line Products’ Primal™ TV4 featuring MOTIV’s latest Vicious™ Pearl Reactive coverstock technology becomes available February 4, 2011. NeoMark™ graphics—yellow claw marks against a black and silver pearl shell—along with the Thrust™ inner core provides a 2.54 RG and .052 differential on a 15# ball. The Primal™ skin finished to 2000 and polished with Power Gel® gives this ball massive shelf appeal. Visit www.motivbowling.com or call 800-2358324. GET MOTIVATED™.
IBI February 2011
Bowling Factory Outlet has purchased the entire inventory of General Bowling Products, Denver. “This is a great fit for my company,” said BFO president PJ Rosendahl. “This will help grow our parts offerings for AMF machines so that we are able to service our customers better.” For more information, visit www.BowlingFactoryOutlet.com.
Until FiZZiON from Kegel came along in 2009, scientists did not believe you could effectively treat both stains and odors equally and thoroughly. But the FiZZiON team developed a three-prong system to completely eliminate stains and odors permanently. Using a reusable spray bottle, FiZZiON tablets totally dissolve in water to make a solution that is not only strong, but is also the most environmentally friendly cleaning agent on the market today. For more information, visit www.fizzionclean.com or call 863-734-0200.
SHOWCASE TRADEMARK ANNOUNCEMENT
WEB-BASED LOCATOR SERVICE
IN-SEASON LANE INSTALLATIONS
BOWLING AID
In-season is an ideal time to modernize your lanes with Brunswick Pro Lane or Anvilane. Brunswick installers work around your business hours, so you can provide uninterrupted bowling throughout the modernization process. Every step is completed with the utmost care to maintain a safe and welcoming environment. Your league bowlers see and experience the investment you are making in their center. For more details, call your Brunswick representative, (800) YES-BOWL or (231) 725-4966.
From Sierra Products, Rowler allows young, old or disabled folks to push the ball off the approach. Result: they do better on the lanes for a more satisfying game. Available in 36”- and 48”-inch lengths, Rowler has a 1-pound, powdercoated aluminum shaft with lane-safe UHMW plastic. Available in silver, red or blue, and approved by ABC/WIBC. For more information, call 800-900-7695 or go to http://www.NoveltyBowlingStuff.com/p-49-rowler.aspx.
KBF SUMMER REGISTRATION PUSH
WOMEN’S PRO BOWLING EXHIBIT
BUMPERS
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
GKM International, LLC, manufacturer of the patented Smart Seat for renewing AMF and Brunswick bowler seating, has been awarded a trademark for its new Profit Platform. The device makes it possible to cover lanes and easily create additional floor space for a wide variety of profit-making functions without damaging the lane surface. For more information, visit www.ProfitPlatform.com.
In partnership with PTO Today magazine (Parent Teacher Organization Magazine), Kids Bowl Free is implementing a summer registration program to support participating bowling centers coast to coast. Each enrolled center will be supported by KBF and a special guarantee that “if we can’t get your cards into the schools in your area you won’t pay a dime.” Visit www.KidsBowlFree.com or call 888-444-0717 for further info.
QubicaAMF DuraBowl automatic bumpers are now available in a version that interfaces with Brunswick Frame-worx (V4.18 and higher) and all versions of Vector scoring, allowing you seamless bumper control through these scoring systems. Durabowl bumpers, the industry’s best bumper. For more information, visit us at Qubica AMF.com or contact your local QubicaAMF sales representative today.
Your potential customers type in “bowling” on their search engine and up comes your contact info, even if you don’t have a website or new scoring – if you have Internet location service. New Center Consulting, Inc. now offers a web locator service that can include your center information, website links, and/or coupons at the touch of your customer’s fingertips, starting as low as $100 set-up and $35 a month. For more information, call Glenn Hartshorn, 888-452-3748.
Help the industry pay tribute to the women trailblazers, tour organizers, international players and legends of the sport. The International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame needs your support to build a special permanent exhibit honoring the past 50 years of Women’s Pro Bowling. Send your tax-deductible donations to IBMHF, Attn: Women’s Pro Bowling Exhibit, 621 Six Flags Drive, Arlington, Texas 76011 or call 800-343-1329.
Hard-wired system from greenrevolution stores ex-cess energy that you pay for but don’t use, then releases it back into your center when you can use. Reduces overall electricity consumption, with ROI in one year (industry average). Installed with no interruption to daily busin-ess. For more information, call 800-655-1033 or email staffthegreenrevolution@gmail.com.
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DATEBOOK
CLASSIFIEDS
FEBRUARY
JUNE
9 Kansas State BPA Mid-Winter Meeting Quality Inn & Suites, Salina KS Mary Thurber 913-638-1817.
6-8 Kansas State BPA Annual Meeting Courtyard by Marriott, Junction City, include table top exhibits & KSBPA Hall of Fame inductions Mary Thurber 913-638-1817.
28 Illinois State BPA Board of Directors Meeting and Leadership Development Workshop Doubletree Hotel, Bloomington. Bill Duff, 847-982-1305, billduff@bowlillinois.com.
MARCH
26-7/1 Bowl Expo Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, Grapevine, TX. 888-649-5685.
JULY
8-10 1st International Bowling Exhibition Kuwait 2011 Mavenpick Convention Center, Salmiya. www.BestExpo-kw.com.
11-12 Iowa BPA Summer Annual Meeting and Trade Show Econolodge, Newton, IA Jenny Duede, 515-255-0808, www.iowabpa.com.
16-19 ENADA-Intl. Amusement & Gaming Show Rimino Expo center Rimini, Italy http://en.enadaprimavera.it/
19-21 Foundations Entertainment University Chicago, IL. www.FoundationsUniversity.com. Frank Seninsky, 732-254-3773, fseninsky@aol.com.
APRIL 26-28 Foundations Entertainment University Dallas, TX www.FoundationsUniversity.com. Frank Seninsky, 732-254-3773, fseninsky@aol.com
MAY 16 Illinois State BPA Board of Directors Meeting Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, Normal. Bill Duff, 847-982-1305, billduff@bowlillinois.com. 38
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21 Montana BPA Annual Board and Membership Meeting Fairmont Hot Springs, MT Tom Brendgord t.brendgord@att.net. 24 Illinois State BPA Board of Directors Meeting with Bowling Centers Association of Michigan Convention and Trade Show Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort, Mt. Pleasant, MI Bill Duff, 847-982-1305, billduff@bowlillinois.com.
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE AMERICAN-MADE PINSETTER PARTS – HIGHEST QUALITY. Visit us on the web at www.ebnservices.com or call toll free (888) 435-6289. USED BRUNSWICK PARTS, A2 parts and assemblies. Large Inventory. www.usedpinsetterparts.com. NEW & USED Pro Shop Equipment. Jayhawk Bowling Supply. 800-2556436 or jayhawkbowling.com. Pinsetter Parts New from ALL major manufacturers. HUGE IN STOCK inventory. USED Brunswick Scoring parts, AS90 cameras, processors, lane cables, monitors, and PC boards. Order online @ 888SBIBOWL.com or (888) 724-2695. The Mechanics Choice! Buy or Sell @ www.bowlingyardsale.com; one-stop shopping for bowling equipment — from lane packages to dust mops! REPAIR & EXCHANGE. Call for details (248) 375-2751. MUST SELL. 20 lanes Qubica scoring equipment. Purchased new in 2007. Monitors, VDBs, Keyboards, Scoring Pedestals, POS +. By piece or make offer on entire lot. Pictures available @ www.bowljupiter.com/qubica. htm. (214) 431-7561; email: jongano_9@hotmail.com.
EQUIPMENT WANTED LANE MACHINES WANTED. We will purchase your KEGEL-built machine, any age or condition. Phone (608) 764-1464.
CLASSIFIEDS CENTERS FOR SALE 16-lane center in Southern Colorado mountains. Great condition. 18,000 s/f building w/ restaurant & lounge. Paved parking 100 + vehicles. Established leagues & tournaments. $950,000 or make offer. Kipp (719) 852-0155. CENTRAL WISCONSIN: 12 lanes, auto scoring, Anvilane synthetics, 82-70s. Great food sales. Yearly tournament. Attached, large 3 bedroom apartment w/ fireplace. $550K. (715) 223-8230.
UPSTATE NEW YORK: 8-lane center/ commercial building built in 1992. Synthetic lanes, new automatic scoring, kitchen and room to expand! Reduced to sell @ $375,000. Call (315) 376-3611. EASTERN NORTH DAKOTA: 6-lane Brunswick center, bar & grill, drive-thru liquor store in small college town. Also, 3 apartment buildings with 40 units, good rental history. Call (701) 330-7757 or (701) 430-1490. SOUTHWEST KANSAS: well-maintained 8-lane center, A-2s, full-service restaurant. Includes business and real estate. Nice, smaller community. Owner retiring. $212,000. Leave message (620) 397-5828. SOUTHERN INDIANA (close to Indianapolis): 18-lane Brunswick center with lounge, liquor license & movie theater on 4+ acres. Turnkey business. Owner retiring. Great investment! (765) 349-1312. ARIZONA, PAYSON: 16 LANES. Assume mortgage. Details @ http://rimcountry lanes.com/4sale.pdf. Bob (602) 377-6657.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: 16-lane center w/ synthetic lanes, 82-70s, 19,000 s/f building w/ lots of parking. Newly remodeled bar & large kitchen. Owner retiring. (530) 598-2133. IBI
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CLASSIFIEDS
I could not have gotten my loan without him. Bill Hanson All Star Lanes Fort Myers, Florida The leading source for real estate loans with low down payments
Ken Paton (503) 645-5630 www.kenpaton.com kpaton@kenpaton.com
LOCKER KEYS FAST! •Keys & Combo Locks for all Types of Lockers.
CENTERS FOR SALE NEW YORK STATE: Thousand Island region. 8-lane Brunswick center w/ cosmic bowling, auto scoring. Established leagues + many improvements. $309,000. Call Jill @ Lori Gervera Real Estate (315) 771-9302. NW KANSAS: 12-lane center, AS-80s, Lane Shield, snack bar, pro shop, game & pool rooms. See pics and info @ www.visitcolby.com or contact Charles (785) 443-3477. NE MINNESOTA: Food, Liquor & Bowling. Established 8 lanes between Mpls & Duluth w/ large bar, dining room, banquet area. Two large State employment facilities nearby. High six figure gross. $1.2m. Call Bryan (2180 380-8089. www.majesticpine.com.
WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA: One of the top five places to move! Remodeled 32-lane center. Good numbers. $3.1m gets it all. Fax qualified inquiries to (828) 253-0362. NE PENNSYLVANIA: 12-lane center, 10,500 s/f with 82-70s, Twelve Strike scoring, a great sports bar and game room. Large parking lot. Huge potential. Possible owner financing. $625,000. Call Mike (727) 858-3427.
•One week turnaround on most orders. •New locks All types •Used locks 1/2 price of new
All keys done by code #. No keys necessary.
FAX YOUR ORDER TO US AT:
530-432-2933
CALL TOLL FREE 1-800-700-4KEY INTʼL 530-432-1027 Orange County Security Consultants 10285 Ironclad Road, Rough & Ready, CA 95975
For FLORIDA CENTERS Call DAVID DRISCOLL & ASSOCIATES 1-800-444-BOWL P.O. Box 189 Howey-in-the-Hills, FL 34737 AN AFFILIATE OF SANDY HANSELL & ASSOCIATES 40
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SOUTHERN NEVADA: 8-lane center. Only center in town of 15,000. 30 minutes from Las Vegas. AMF 82-70s, newer Twelve Strike scoring. R/E leased. Will consider lease/option with qualified person. REDUCED TO $175,000. Call Steve @ (702) 293-2368; email ljjaa1414@yahoo.com. CENTRAL IDAHO: 8-lane center and restaurant in central Idaho mountains. Small town. Only center within 60-mile radius. Brunswick A-2 machines; Anvilane lane beds; automatic scoring. (208) 879-4448.
CLASSIFIEDS CENTERS FOR SALE SOUTHWESTERN WYOMING: 12 lanes + cafĂŠ & lounge, 2 acres w/ 5 bedroom home. Full liquor & fireworks licenses. Outside Salt Lake City area. Dennis @ Uinta Realty, Inc. (888) 804-4805 or uintarlt@allwest.net. GEORGIA: busy 32-lane center, real estate included. Great location in one of fastest growing counties in metro Atlanta. 5 years new with all the amenities. Excellent numbers. Call (770) 356-8751. NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: 16-lane center REDUCED to $799,000 for quick sale. Synthetics, 82-70s, 19,000 s/f + parking. Newly remodeled bar, large kitchen. Owner retiring. Will consider selling only equipment or building. www.siskiyoulanes.com. (530) 598-2133. NORTHWEST LOUISIANA: 12-LANE Brunswick center. REDUCED TO SELL NOW! Includes auto scoring, glow bowling, pizza, large dining area & video poker. Good income. Long Lease. Great opportunity. Call Mike (318) 578-0772.
WWW.FACEBOOKBOWLING.COM
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CLASSIFIEDS CENTERS FOR SALE
CENTERS FOR SALE
NW INDIANA (Lake Michigan/National Lake Shore area): Well-maintained 32lane center, family owned & operated since 1997 with spacious nightclub lounge on 6.6 acres. Also billiards, arcade, pro shop, full-service restaurant, established leagues, birthday party activity & MORE! Owner retiring. Reasonably priced. (219) 921-4999. CENTRAL ALABAMA: Recently remodeled, split house w/24 synthetic lanes (16 & 8) in 28,000 s/f building in shopping center; Brunswick A2s & 2000 seating; AccuScore Plus; VIA returns & storage tables; systems for Cosmic; established leagues; snack bar, pro shop & game/pool table area. Nearest competition 28 miles w/ colleges & Honda factory within minutes. Need to sell due to health. Reasonably priced. (435) 705-0420. NORTHERN WISCONSIN: Turnkey business. 12-lane center, Brunswick A-2s, Frameworx scoring, full bar and restaurant. Good league base with large tournament. Contact Bruce @ (715) 614-7779.
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CENTERS FOR SALE MISSOURI, St. Louis area: Two centers for Sale or Lease in great bowling areas. 1) 16-lane Brunswick recently remodeled. 2) 24-lane Brunswick/Qubica Scoring, stateof-the-art with all the whistles and bells. MUST SEE! Contact Voss Management Properties (636) 458-9430 or stlbpa@aol.com. MINNESOTA—Brainerd Lakes area: Successful 8-lane AMF center with pizza, restaurant & bar. 7,952 s/f. In middle of Nature’s Paradise! Contact Chris @ CloseConverse (218) 828-3334.
NE NEVADA: New 2001. 16 lanes, 19,200 square feet, 1.68 acres paved, sound & lighting, lounge w/ gaming, arcade, full service snack bar & pro shop. Call (775) 934-1539.
TEXAS, SE Houston: 40-lane center in mid-sized market. Updated scoring, lanes, seating, masking units in 2007 plus remodeled bar. New roof. Includes RE. Bank owned. Ken Paton (503) 645-5630.
CENTRAL ILLINOIS: PRICED TO SELL!! 8-lane center with AMF 82-70s, full service restaurant, pro shop. Plus pool tables, Karaoke machine, DJ system. Includes RE. (217) 351-5152 or toms-uvl@sbcglobal.net.
EAST CENTRAL MISSOURI: 24-lane center with property included in high traffic area—well-maintained; solid business. Lease/purchase and/or owner financing available to qualified buyer. Email: yolo2011@yahoo.com.
CLASSIFIEDS
Sell Your Center or Eqpt.
Fast! (818) 789-2695
AMF and some BRUNSWICK PC board repair/exchange. 6-month warranty, fast turnaround. Call or write: WB8YJF Service 5586 Babbitt Road, New Albany, Ohio 43054 Toll Free: 888-902-BOWL (2695) Ph./Fax: (614) 855-3022 (Jon) E-mail: wb8yjf@earthlink.net Visit us on the WEB! http://home.earthlink.net/~wb8yjf/
WWW.FACEBOOKBOWLING.COM (570) 346-5559
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CLASSIFIEDS SERVICES AVAILABLE Drill Bit Sharpening and Measuring Ball Repair. Jayhawk Bowling Supply. 800255-6436 or Jayhawkbowling.com. AMF 65-25 CHASSIS: Conversion, Repair, Replace & Exchange. Includes rewiring, requested repairs, conversion to MK 30 board system and converting chassis to new PR system where applicable. TOTAL SATISFACTION GUARANTEED. References available. CHASSIS DOCTORS (330) 314-8951.
HELP WANTED PROMOTIONS PERSON for multi-centers in Indiana/Kentucky area. Great opportunity! Dennis (502) 722-9314.
POSITION WANTED Brunswick “A” mechanic, 12+ years experience, AS-80/AS-90 scoring system expertise. Former owner/GM. Willing to relocate. Contact me at (308) 380-8594.
BUY
AMF • BRUNSWICK EQUIPMENT COMPLETE PACKAGES WORLDʼS LARGEST NEW – USED SPARE PARTS INVENTORY
Wanted—-job as a manager for a Brunswick center. 30+ years experience in all phases of running a center. Trustworthy with great references. Seeing is believing! Call Owen (763) 497-3139. Please leave message.
SEL L
Danny & Daryl Tucker Tucker Bowling Equipment Co. 609 N.E. 3rd St. Tulia, Texas 79088 Call (806) 995-4018 Fax (806) 995-4767
Bowling Parts, Inc. P.O. Box 801 Tulia, Texas 79088 Call (806) 995-3635 Email - bpitx@texasonline.net
www.bowlingpartsandequipment.com
MINIATURE GOLF COURSES Indoor/Outdoor. Immediate Installation. $5,900.00 & up. 2021 Bridge Street Jessup, PA 18434 570-489-8623 www.minigolfinc.com 44
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WWW.FACEBOOKBOWLING.COM
SELL YOUR CENTER OR EQUIPMENT
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www.CapitalBowlingService.com IBI
February 2011
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REMEMBER WHEN
1947 B
y 1947, bowling was considered the Number One participant sport, and according to this article in the May 5, 1947 issue of LIFE, “The bowler is an emotional extrovert who beats his breast in anguish after missing an easy shot, then turns and alibis soberly, ‘There’s a high board on No. 5 alley.’” Check out the body English on 52 lanes of bowling in Hollywood, California in 1947. The varieties of style are still rampant today, but center palaces the size of Sunset Bowling Center are less prevalent. In April of 1947, President Truman bowled for the first time on the private White House lane and knocked down seven pins with his first ball. It was a great year for bowling with 18,500,000 bowlers of which 3,500,000 were women along with 33,000 ABC sanctioned leagues. ❖
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