A change in plans was worth its weight in gold for the Okotoks bowling community.
After seeing its plans to host the Calgary and Area Peewee Intracity Tournament for the first time ever postponed in the spring, the Millennium Lanes Youth Bowling League hosted the event virtually over two weekends in October and turned in its best performance to date.
“The older of the younger groups, those aged 7 and 8, they had been there before so they knew that this was the culmination of their year,” said Okotoks youth bowling coach Kyle Honish. “In some cases, they felt robbed last year as many other sports did and it was a chance that they could do something right off the bat in the fall.”
Organizers opted to make the event virtual where centres would tabulate their scores in house and send them in for submission with restrictions in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Because it was our chance to host, I just started brainstorming and talking to some people, one guy at Chinook in particular, because it’s kind of his baby to house everything,” said Honish. “We all agreed, let’s just do it in our own houses, our own bowling centre, this way we can give those young children a chance to participate still and still be part of something and not have COVID written on any trophy plates for 2020.
“We knew it wasn’t ideal, but it was a chance to give them a chance to earn something.”
Honish said it was Okotoks’ best ever finish in the annual competition, with medals earned in all five disciplines of boys team, girls team, mixed team, boys singles and girls singles.
“We medalled in all five of them, first time we’ve ever done that,” Honish added. “With that, we had two gold medals in the boys team and girls team and that’s the first time we’ve had two titles like that in the same year.
“For the boys, it’s the second time in three years and for the girls, we did it four years ago.”
The boys team featured Ryan de Boer, Milosh Lakic and Daniel Kowalchuk, the girls team was comprised of Elizabeth Honish, Chasity Serson and Elisha Delehay.
The mixed team of Andrew Honish, Elyssa de Boer and Sarah Delehay earned the bronze with Cade Corrigan and Laura Delehay taking the silver in boys and girls singles, respectively.
“At this point there’s been nothing going on competition wise in terms of other centres competing against each other, it’s slowly starting to open up,” Honish said. “This is the first one that we could do and we did it in our own houses, everyone emailed scores into us and we just divvied up prizes from here.”
Due to COVID-19 measures, there aren’t any competitions lined up at the moment, but that’s done little to dampen the enthusiasm for the sport.
Registration numbers remain strong at the lanes, hovering around the 34 mark.
“Right now it’s in house, have some fun and learn along the way hopefully,” Honish said. “We just emphasize the fun and our numbers really weren’t affected that bad by COVID, I think we’re down about four or five from last year. Again, our young population is our strength, I think we’ve got 17 children under the age of eight.
“I think there’s only one other centre that’s close to that in the Calgary area.”
For more information go to millenniumlanes.com/youth_bowling_ybc
