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Sports Oakville Beaver SPORTS EDITOR: JON KUIPERIJ Phone 905-845-3824 (ext. 255) Fax 905-337-5567 email sports@oakvillebeaver.com · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2008 41 A celebration of five-pin's centennial By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF It outpaced the pacemaker, zipped by the zipper, dunked basketball and kicked the green garbage bag to the curb. Heck, it even beat the Wonderbra. In fact, when the CBC produced The Greatest Canadian Invention, only three innovations topped it: insulin, the telephone and the light bulb. So as five-pin bowling celebrates its 100th anniversary, Terry Burns decided the time was right to do something to honour the game he has been playing since the age of nine. The Exeter, Ont. native -- who now lives there you're going to get something," in Yellowknife, NWT -- took a leave from Watson says. "Five-pin is more about aim." Another aspect of the five-pin game that his job, put his belongings in storage, packed his bags and set out on a 14-week makes it popular is that it is more a familycoast-to-coast bowling adventure. Burns' oriented game. Originally developed by original plan was to visit 100 bowling alleys Ryan after he received complaints about the in 100 days but since he started, other weight of 10-pin balls (up to 16 pounds) the bowling alleys have heard of his one-man five-pin balls can be held in the bowler's caravan and asked him to stop by. And the hand and weigh about 3.5 pounds. "You can take a three-year-old and your number of bowlers there to greet him at 80-year-old grandma and you don't have to each stop has also continued to grow. Tuesday afternoon, Burns rolled into modify it at all," Watson said. "It's the same Oakville's Hopedale Bowl and Burlington's game." Watson's wife Linda took up the game at Rosedale Bowl prior to his regularly scheduled stop in Cambridge that evening, a lit- Roseland Bowl in Burlington when she was tle over a month since he bowled his first eight. She followed in her mother's footsteps in the game and now her son Ryan, game in St. John's, Newfoundland. "I'm just on vacation having fun," Burns 14, and Brittany, 11, are playing the game, "and they can whip us," she said. says. But there is a little more to it "You never see In Newfoundland, Burns than that. He started planning this anyone not having bowled against the trip 10 years ago. The first concept fun. Even if they're province's bantam girls' involved taking a team cross counbowling badly, champion. In Toronto, he try, but costs were prohibitive. The played with a group of senidea was scaled back until it was they're still iors. just he and his wife. It was delayed having fun." "There was a nine-yearwhen she became sick. When she Five-pin bowling old boy in Lewisporte, passed away last May, he renewed enthusiast Terry Burns Newfoundland who shot a his plans. 290 and there were 80-year"It was better than sitting olds still bowling better than me (in around being depressed," he said. After all, it has always been the social Toronto)," Burns said. Burns sports a lifetime average of aspect that Burns enjoys about the game. He started bowling when he was nine, but approximately 220, though it's been as high the nearest lanes were 45 minutes away. He as 250 over a season. After not bowling didn't get really involved until he was 15 much over the past year, his average has and his dad was looking for a spare for his dipped to about 190 on the tour. The daily games are beginning to pay off, however, as team. "You never see anyone not having fun. he bowled a 286 in Oakville. Burns' cross-country tour will wrap up Even if they're bowling badly, they're still having fun," Burns said. "It's a chance to in Duncan, B.C. Dec. 19 at an alley where get together, find out what's going on and, he once had a brush with a perfect game, even if you don't have anything to talk bowling eight consecutive strikes before about, you can laugh and joke around -- leaving a single pin in the ninth frame. "I threw a beautiful ball, but the corner `Hey, you just threw a gutterball.' Five-pin bowling, invented by Thomas pin just laughed at me," he said. He made the spare and finished with Ryan in Toronto in 1909, features a smaller ball and smaller (and obviously fewer) pins three strikes for a 418. So while the perfect game has eluded than 10-pin bowling. him, he's quite sure the perfect sport has Hopedale Bowl owner feels five-pin is harder not. And so for the next two months, Burns Ron Watson says if you ask 10-pin will continue to bowl his way across the bowlers, they will say their game is harder. country and promote the game he loves. But the owner of Hopedale Bowl, which is "There's not enough recognition for it," celebrating an anniversary of its own (its Burns said. "I wanted to get the word out 50th), disagrees, saying the chances of there on a Canadian sport. I mean, how splitting pins in five-pin is much greater. many things last 100 years? It's part of "In 10-pin, if you muscle a ball down Canada's heritage." MICHAEL IVANIN / OAKVILLE BEAVER FIVE-PINFANATIC: Terry Burns takes his best shot at Hopedale Bowl, where he stopped Tuesday as part of his cross-Canada 100th birthday celebration of the five-pin game.