Candlepin Bowling

Candlepin bowling is a variation of bowling that is played primarily in the Canadian Maritime provinces and the New England states of the United States. There is a set of lanes in the Wyoming, Ohio civic center, and also at a center in Fostoria, Ohio. Additionally, there is a ninepin bowling "club" in Bulverde, Texas, which uses candlepins on two of their lanes, although these lanes are not actually set up for candlepin bowling, as the club's primary interest is 9-pin bowling.

Candlepin bowling was developed in 1880 in Worcester, Massachusetts, by Justin White, a local bowling center owner, some years before both the standardization of the tenpin bowling sport in 1895 and the invention of duckpin bowling, said by some sources to have been invented the same year. As in other forms of bowling, the players roll balls down a wooden pathway ("lane") to knock down as many pins as possible. The main differences between candlepin bowling and the predominant tenpin bowling style are that each player uses three balls per frame, rather than two (see below); the balls are much smaller (11.43 cm or 4½ in diameter) with each ball weighing as much as only one candlepin and without finger holes; the pins are thinner (hence the name "candlepin"), and thus harder to knock down; and the downed pins (known as "wood") are not cleared away between balls during a player's turn. Because of these differences, scoring points is considerably more difficult than in tenpin bowling, and the highest officially sanctioned score ever recorded is 245 out of a possible 300 points. This score was first achieved in 1984 by Ralph Semb, who is the President of the International Candlepin Bowling Association as of 2016^[update]. The record was matched on May 13, 2011 by Chris Sargent of Haverhill, Massachusetts, at the Metro Bowl Lanes candlepin center in Peabody, Massachusetts, and accepted by the ICBA.

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