November 13, 2006
Lonely lanes | Alley owners work to reverse the slow fade of candlepin bowling
By Kerry Elson
In a back room at the Bowling Bowl, Matt Laffley thrusts a callused hand into a bucket of old candlepin bowling balls and plucks one out for inspection. The ball, small enough to fit in his palm, is probably from the 1960s, says Laffley, a veteran player who in mid-October took ownership of the candlepin bowling alley in Brunswick.
The balls are dented and dirty, unfit for play right now, Laffley says, speaking loudly over candlepins clattering on the wooden lanes a few feet away. They were hidden in the 65-year-old alley's basement, near piles of old pinsetter machine parts that Laffley, a mechanic, couldn't salvage. But the bowling balls, he thought, would serve nicely once he cleaned them up and smoothed their finish. So, he says, he'll send them to the manufacturer, who can give them a fresh coating for less than it would cost to buy new ones altogether.
Refurbishing dinged-up old bowling balls is part of Laffley's plan to revitalize the Bowling Bowl, which he bought from the local chapter of the Knights of Columbus after the business saw a sharp decline in revenue in the last couple years. Laffley, however, thinks that renovations and better marketing can help it survive. "A lot of people say candlepin is dying because kids are into videogames," Laffley says, holding up one of the brick-colored balls, "but I'm going to try to get families back in here."
It won't be an easy task. While candlepin bowling was once a popular pastime in Maine ˆ as well as throughout New England and parts of eastern Canada ˆ the number of dedicated players has dwindled, causing many candlepin alleys to close since their heyday in the 1950s. Today, there are roughly 35 candlepin alleys in Maine, down from about 60 back then, according to the Maine State Candlepin Bowling Association.
The Bowling Bowl was set to close, too, until Laffley, formerly the alley's mechanic, agreed to buy it. And to stay afloat, Laffley will have to reverse a trend that the alley's former manager, Lou Levesque, says led the business to barely break even in 2005.
"We're competing for people's time now, especially for young families. There are events with school and sporting events," Levesque says. "Our following is getting old or they're dying."
A New England tradition
Tucked away on a skinny side street in downtown Brunswick, the Bowling Bowl often was stuffed to the brim with customers after it opened in 1941. The place looks much like it did back then, except for new paint and equipment upgrades. The building is small; customers call it cozy. It has a low ceiling, with fluorescent lights shining onto seven pale wooden lanes ˆ a small number compared to the state's other alleys, the largest of which, in Saco, has 32 lanes. The walls are decorated with fabric cut in the shape of pine trees, and high on one wall there's a whiteboard where staff can pen an inspiring "thought for the week."
A small-but-dedicated coterie of bowlers still plays there every week. Groups of four or five can form a team, which can be part of a league that plays weekly, from the Thursday afternoon senior league to the Wednesday night Bath Iron Works league, called Battleship. The alley currently has 10 leagues, though new owner Laffley is working to recruit more, because they're the business's mainstay.
Players keep coming back, they say, because candlepin is a challenge. Unlike ten-pin bowling, Maine's candlepin enthusiasts say, no one's ever gotten a perfect score of 300. Candlepin balls are smaller than ten-pin balls, too, so they're easier to handle, making them ideal for children and the elderly, says Frank Layne, president of the Maine State Candlepin Bowling Association and manager of Saco Valley Sports Center in Fryeburg. (For more on the difference between the games, see "Candlepin vs. ten-pin bowling," this page.) And the relatively low cost of candlepin ˆ the Bowling Bowl charges $1.50 to rent shoes and $2.50 a game ˆ makes it more affordable than some other entertainment.
The game also is a time to socialize. Members of the Bowling Bowl's senior league, like 83-year-old Lou Messier, say they play every week because they can see friends. "What would we be doing if we didn't have bowling? Watch television? That's lousy," Messier says.
But except for one alley in Ohio, you can only play candlepin in New England, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Theories about its regional status vary, but most candlepin experts say the game's difficulty has kept it from spreading nationally. The first candlepin alley opened in 1880 in Worcester, Mass., then the sport moved north. Around the same time, ten-pin was growing in New York state and taking root elsewhere. Players seem to have preferred that game's loud, satisfying strike and attainable perfect score.
New England residents, though, had become attached to candlepin, and the alleys were social hubs for many towns. For a time, says Levesque, the Bowling Bowl was the place to be in Brunswick. Workers from the Verney Corp., a fabric manufacturer that occupied the nearby Fort Andross mill in the 40s and 50s, would go there after hours. Levesque ˆ who was one of the alley's pinsetters at the time, collecting and replacing toppled pins ˆ remembers the alley as a smoke-filled den where workers would fraternize, buzzed from the bar around the corner. "That was a tough crowd," he says. He often returned home with bruises and cuts ˆ but not from the patrons. He would be hit by flying pins.
Until the late 80s, after the owners had introduced pinsetting machines and projection screens to tally scores, the Bowling Bowl remained a social center. Players had to make reservations in advance if they wanted to bowl on Saturday nights. There was a waiting list to join the leagues. Spectators packed the tiny lobby to watch championships.
That all changed in the last decade or so, says Levesque. "We have a championship match now," he says, "and you know who shows up? The bowlers."
There are fewer customers now, he says, partly because there are more options for entertainment, like renting movies or browsing the Internet. Dedicated players got older, and a younger generation was increasingly busy with school and after-school sports, too preoccupied to spend much time at the alley.
Other candlepin bowling alleys in Maine have had a similar experience. Ken Osborne, owner of Pins n' Cues in Millinocket, saw a 40% drop in customers when the Great Northern Paper mills closed a couple years ago. Osborne says customers are only beginning to come back, teenagers mostly. The place has been for sale for the last five years. "There've been a few tire kickers," he says. "Nobody wants to invest in it because there's no business hereˆ Customers cut out recreation [from their budget] and kept their money to pay their bills."
A new spin
Feeling a similar pinch at the Bowling Bowl, the Knights of Columbus last year began looking for a buyer. Members hoped to keep the bowling alley open, and they asked Laffley, its longtime mechanic, to consider buying the building ˆ the business itself would come free. Laffley, who also works full-time at Brunswick Home and Garden Center, had always wanted to run a business, so he agreed.
No bank would loan him money for the building, skeptical that an investment would pay off. So instead, the Knights of Columbus holds the $200,000 mortgage, and Laffley hopes to repay the debt in four years. He'll be working for free until then, he says, investing more than $35,000 in his own labor costs to fix the machines.
Like many candlepin proprietors, Laffley says he hopes to attract more young people to the game. He plans to offer a $10 pizza-and-bowling package to Bowdoin College students, and start a Saturday league for local high schoolers. He may even get a website, though Laffley admits he knows nothing about the Internet.
Those strategies may help. At Colonial Bowling Center in Westbrook, owners Kevin Sparks and Blaine Reynolds spent nearly $80,000 when they bought the place two years ago. The investment in a new deck, a smoking lounge and machine parts helped revenues climb, says Sparks, who also humbly acknowledges that, as a three-time state champ, his big name in the candlepin world also draws competitive, regular players. "I'm kind of like a headliner," he says, grinning.
But he also credits the turnaround to having more tournaments and children's birthday parties. Those events bring more customers into the center and sell a lot of soda, beer and snacks. Getting children into candlepin is key for the game to survive, Sparks says. After birthday parties, for example, he lets the kids who attend play for free. "We treat kids here like gold," he says.
Other proprietors have a similar attitude, installing arcades and expensive equipment that transforms the alleys into glow-in-the-dark discos on weekends. Owen Martin, owner of Bowl-A-Rama in Sanford, six years ago spent $40,000 on a sound system and lighting that makes the pins, balls and carpeting glow in the dark, for an event he calls "Rock n' Glo." The investment has paid off, says Martin. "It's like what the Blizzard did for Dairy Queen," he says, adding that he extended his hours on Friday and Saturday nights to accommodate crowds.
Laffley has no plans to add those features to the Bowling Bowl ˆ the business doesn't have enough money and the building is too small to support them, he says. But he hopes smaller improvements and his efforts to recruit new bowlers will help boost business enough to pay off the mortgage, and then survive for his retirement. At that point, he says, managing the alley could be a fun, part-time job.
In the meantime, though, Laffley admits that he has a lot to learn. The day after he signed the papers taking ownership of the Bowling Bowl, Laffley remembers feeling frantic, unsure how to work the cash register or tally players' scores for their records. At the end of the night ˆ a Friday night ˆ he brought in a disappointing $47. But the following week, he made $105. "I doubled it!" he says laughing. "There's hope!"
The balls are dented and dirty, unfit for play right now, Laffley says, speaking loudly over candlepins clattering on the wooden lanes a few feet away. They were hidden in the 65-year-old alley's basement, near piles of old pinsetter machine parts that Laffley, a mechanic, couldn't salvage. But the bowling balls, he thought, would serve nicely once he cleaned them up and smoothed their finish. So, he says, he'll send them to the manufacturer, who can give them a fresh coating for less than it would cost to buy new ones altogether.
Refurbishing dinged-up old bowling balls is part of Laffley's plan to revitalize the Bowling Bowl, which he bought from the local chapter of the Knights of Columbus after the business saw a sharp decline in revenue in the last couple years. Laffley, however, thinks that renovations and better marketing can help it survive. "A lot of people say candlepin is dying because kids are into videogames," Laffley says, holding up one of the brick-colored balls, "but I'm going to try to get families back in here."
It won't be an easy task. While candlepin bowling was once a popular pastime in Maine ˆ as well as throughout New England and parts of eastern Canada ˆ the number of dedicated players has dwindled, causing many candlepin alleys to close since their heyday in the 1950s. Today, there are roughly 35 candlepin alleys in Maine, down from about 60 back then, according to the Maine State Candlepin Bowling Association.
The Bowling Bowl was set to close, too, until Laffley, formerly the alley's mechanic, agreed to buy it. And to stay afloat, Laffley will have to reverse a trend that the alley's former manager, Lou Levesque, says led the business to barely break even in 2005.
"We're competing for people's time now, especially for young families. There are events with school and sporting events," Levesque says. "Our following is getting old or they're dying."
A New England tradition
Tucked away on a skinny side street in downtown Brunswick, the Bowling Bowl often was stuffed to the brim with customers after it opened in 1941. The place looks much like it did back then, except for new paint and equipment upgrades. The building is small; customers call it cozy. It has a low ceiling, with fluorescent lights shining onto seven pale wooden lanes ˆ a small number compared to the state's other alleys, the largest of which, in Saco, has 32 lanes. The walls are decorated with fabric cut in the shape of pine trees, and high on one wall there's a whiteboard where staff can pen an inspiring "thought for the week."
A small-but-dedicated coterie of bowlers still plays there every week. Groups of four or five can form a team, which can be part of a league that plays weekly, from the Thursday afternoon senior league to the Wednesday night Bath Iron Works league, called Battleship. The alley currently has 10 leagues, though new owner Laffley is working to recruit more, because they're the business's mainstay.
Players keep coming back, they say, because candlepin is a challenge. Unlike ten-pin bowling, Maine's candlepin enthusiasts say, no one's ever gotten a perfect score of 300. Candlepin balls are smaller than ten-pin balls, too, so they're easier to handle, making them ideal for children and the elderly, says Frank Layne, president of the Maine State Candlepin Bowling Association and manager of Saco Valley Sports Center in Fryeburg. (For more on the difference between the games, see "Candlepin vs. ten-pin bowling," this page.) And the relatively low cost of candlepin ˆ the Bowling Bowl charges $1.50 to rent shoes and $2.50 a game ˆ makes it more affordable than some other entertainment.
The game also is a time to socialize. Members of the Bowling Bowl's senior league, like 83-year-old Lou Messier, say they play every week because they can see friends. "What would we be doing if we didn't have bowling? Watch television? That's lousy," Messier says.
But except for one alley in Ohio, you can only play candlepin in New England, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Theories about its regional status vary, but most candlepin experts say the game's difficulty has kept it from spreading nationally. The first candlepin alley opened in 1880 in Worcester, Mass., then the sport moved north. Around the same time, ten-pin was growing in New York state and taking root elsewhere. Players seem to have preferred that game's loud, satisfying strike and attainable perfect score.
New England residents, though, had become attached to candlepin, and the alleys were social hubs for many towns. For a time, says Levesque, the Bowling Bowl was the place to be in Brunswick. Workers from the Verney Corp., a fabric manufacturer that occupied the nearby Fort Andross mill in the 40s and 50s, would go there after hours. Levesque ˆ who was one of the alley's pinsetters at the time, collecting and replacing toppled pins ˆ remembers the alley as a smoke-filled den where workers would fraternize, buzzed from the bar around the corner. "That was a tough crowd," he says. He often returned home with bruises and cuts ˆ but not from the patrons. He would be hit by flying pins.
Until the late 80s, after the owners had introduced pinsetting machines and projection screens to tally scores, the Bowling Bowl remained a social center. Players had to make reservations in advance if they wanted to bowl on Saturday nights. There was a waiting list to join the leagues. Spectators packed the tiny lobby to watch championships.
That all changed in the last decade or so, says Levesque. "We have a championship match now," he says, "and you know who shows up? The bowlers."
There are fewer customers now, he says, partly because there are more options for entertainment, like renting movies or browsing the Internet. Dedicated players got older, and a younger generation was increasingly busy with school and after-school sports, too preoccupied to spend much time at the alley.
Other candlepin bowling alleys in Maine have had a similar experience. Ken Osborne, owner of Pins n' Cues in Millinocket, saw a 40% drop in customers when the Great Northern Paper mills closed a couple years ago. Osborne says customers are only beginning to come back, teenagers mostly. The place has been for sale for the last five years. "There've been a few tire kickers," he says. "Nobody wants to invest in it because there's no business hereˆ Customers cut out recreation [from their budget] and kept their money to pay their bills."
A new spin
Feeling a similar pinch at the Bowling Bowl, the Knights of Columbus last year began looking for a buyer. Members hoped to keep the bowling alley open, and they asked Laffley, its longtime mechanic, to consider buying the building ˆ the business itself would come free. Laffley, who also works full-time at Brunswick Home and Garden Center, had always wanted to run a business, so he agreed.
No bank would loan him money for the building, skeptical that an investment would pay off. So instead, the Knights of Columbus holds the $200,000 mortgage, and Laffley hopes to repay the debt in four years. He'll be working for free until then, he says, investing more than $35,000 in his own labor costs to fix the machines.
Like many candlepin proprietors, Laffley says he hopes to attract more young people to the game. He plans to offer a $10 pizza-and-bowling package to Bowdoin College students, and start a Saturday league for local high schoolers. He may even get a website, though Laffley admits he knows nothing about the Internet.
Those strategies may help. At Colonial Bowling Center in Westbrook, owners Kevin Sparks and Blaine Reynolds spent nearly $80,000 when they bought the place two years ago. The investment in a new deck, a smoking lounge and machine parts helped revenues climb, says Sparks, who also humbly acknowledges that, as a three-time state champ, his big name in the candlepin world also draws competitive, regular players. "I'm kind of like a headliner," he says, grinning.
But he also credits the turnaround to having more tournaments and children's birthday parties. Those events bring more customers into the center and sell a lot of soda, beer and snacks. Getting children into candlepin is key for the game to survive, Sparks says. After birthday parties, for example, he lets the kids who attend play for free. "We treat kids here like gold," he says.
Other proprietors have a similar attitude, installing arcades and expensive equipment that transforms the alleys into glow-in-the-dark discos on weekends. Owen Martin, owner of Bowl-A-Rama in Sanford, six years ago spent $40,000 on a sound system and lighting that makes the pins, balls and carpeting glow in the dark, for an event he calls "Rock n' Glo." The investment has paid off, says Martin. "It's like what the Blizzard did for Dairy Queen," he says, adding that he extended his hours on Friday and Saturday nights to accommodate crowds.
Laffley has no plans to add those features to the Bowling Bowl ˆ the business doesn't have enough money and the building is too small to support them, he says. But he hopes smaller improvements and his efforts to recruit new bowlers will help boost business enough to pay off the mortgage, and then survive for his retirement. At that point, he says, managing the alley could be a fun, part-time job.
In the meantime, though, Laffley admits that he has a lot to learn. The day after he signed the papers taking ownership of the Bowling Bowl, Laffley remembers feeling frantic, unsure how to work the cash register or tally players' scores for their records. At the end of the night ˆ a Friday night ˆ he brought in a disappointing $47. But the following week, he made $105. "I doubled it!" he says laughing. "There's hope!"
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