Some things never change at St. Albert Bowling Centre.
There's the melodious trundle of balls moving down the lanes, the bopping of pins hitting against each other, and the hollers and high-five claps of exuberant players. Even those famous, two-tone shoes still have that distinctive smell of old sweat and disinfectant.
"That's one thing I like about bowling. It's still fairly traditional," says Richard LaPerle, one of the centre's owners.
St. Albert Bowling Centre has been a fixture in the city for 25 years and its owners say it isn't going anywhere. But bowling centres across the province are closing, pushed out of their spaces by new developments and high leases.
There are also fewer players – especially those in their 20s – joining leagues, forcing bowling centres to work harder to attract recreational players.
A lack of youth
What draws people to bowling is that anyone can do it, says LaPerle. You can't let anyone down but yourself, and the only thing to improve is your own game.
Children as young as three years old can start to bowl in leagues and move on to adult leagues by the time they turn 20. In the summer, the centre runs a learn-to-bowl camp for children, hoping that some will join the leagues, LaPerle says. On league nights, the centre often gives out trophies and holds themed parties for their players.
The sport is rewarding but it's constantly competing with all the other options youth have these days, says Mary Jane Carroll, owner and manager of the centre. If you don't entertain them, you lose them, Carroll says.
At one point Alberta had 15,000 kids bowling on a weekly basis. Today, that number is down to 3,500.
"You want league bowlers because they are guaranteed," she says. "So we are looking at the program, just to make it fun with different kind of games that we are doing and the parties that you throw in between … little events to make it fun, to make sure you keep their interest."
Bowling for no dollars
It's not only the youth who are missing from bowling alleys.
At St. Albert Bowling Centre, 980 registered players bowl in leagues throughout the week. On a regular weekend, says LaPerle, the centre attracts almost the same number of recreational players.
It wasn't always that way. At one point, about 80 per cent of bowlers across the country were competitive players while 20 per cent were recreational, says Grady Long, executive director with Bowl Alberta. Today that ratio is more like 60:40.
There were also once about 20 bowling centres located in the Edmonton region. Today there are eight.
Long says the centres have closed because landlords don't extent their leases. Sometimes, they charge a far higher lease than the bowling centres can afford to pay. So they move out, making room for new commercial and residential developments, he says.
"Canada-wide we've been hurt by the real estate boom which is quite drastic in British Columbia and Alberta primarily," he said. "For people who own their own facility, their property is now worth millions of dollars compared to what it would have been worth 20 years ago."
Changes in property values also won't allow for new facilities to be built. You can't make enough money on eight lanes to make a return, as such a facility will cost upwards of $1 million, Long says. If new centres are built, he expects they will be located outside the cities or in the basements of strip malls.
And league players don't just pick up and move to another location, he says. In a group of 500 bowlers, there are maybe 50 or 100 people who continue to play competitively after their centre closes. The others become recreational players.
"People these days – in today's economy and today's population – will recreate within a 10 to 15 minute drive to where they live," he says. "So if there isn't a bowling centre within 10 minutes distance, they don't bowl."
Automatic scoring systems and neon bowling have kept the industry alive for a long time, says Grady. But today people expect more fun activities in one place.
"It used to be that a bowling centre was a dark and dingy place, it had the reputation of a pool hall if you know what I mean," he said. "Now they are recreation centres … it's got other things besides just bowling."
Bowling is bowling
LaPerle says St. Albert's Bowling Centre hasn't changed much since he started working there 13 years ago. Back then, they had curved benches instead of tables and people kept score on paper. Today, scores are kept electronically, displayed on TV screens hanging from the ceiling.
Even the pinsetting machinery hasn't changed much. Sometimes an attendant has to manually untangle the strings that hold the pins, he says. And if they want to switch from 10-pin to five-pin, they do it mostly by hand.
The most modern additions include a laser show, a fog machine and a new stereo system that thumps out loud party music at night to accommodate the younger crowd.
They have mini golf out back in the summer. And a small bar tucked away in a corner serves fresh pizza, pub fare and alcoholic drinks. A party room and a set of tables are set aside for birthday parties and company outings.
And then there's the arcade with its kerfuffle of lights and beeps and jolly tunes. This was installed a few years ago, Carroll says. On a regular night people like to pause from bowling, have a drink and drop a few coins into the machines for a chance to win a prize.
The owners don't worry that they will lose their land and be forced to close, like other bowling alleys in the Edmonton area. The land still belongs to the previous owner who runs a bowling supplies company and cares about the industry, she says.
But she would like to bring in new games and maybe update the scoring software. The few hundred thousand dollars needed can't be picked from thin air though, she says.
"Everything nowadays is going to electronics, just modernizing it. On the same token a lot of people like bowling because of the nostalgia," she says. "As far as actually bowling – bowling is bowling – you can't modernize it."
