Other ways to make bowling leagues enjoyable

OK, many of you out there joined a 36-week bowling league this fall with visions of grandeur and a league championship in your eyes. Well, when reality sets in, you may realize that the chances of your team finishing in first place aren't that great. You start thinking that maybe you should vote for a prize structure where there are sizable prizes for the middle-of-the-pack teams. You might even think that a 36-week league is a very long commitment.

Well, don't worry; your league can still be a lot of fun. There are other ways to have fun while you bowl. Here are some ideas that are already in place in a many leagues.

Poker card game

One of the most popular ideas is playing poker while bowling. The way to do this is to have a deck of cards on your team's table. Each time someone on your team gets a spare or strike, he or she takes a card from the top of the deck.

At the end of the 10th frame everyone on the team forms their best five-card poker hand. The winner gets a prize, sometimes a small pot of money that team members have agreed to chip in on. If you want to make it even more interesting, you can chose a card as a wild card for that game.

Another card game

This game is played the same way as the poker game described above but instead of judging on poker hands, you add up the value of all the cards. Aces are worth 11, kings, queens and jacks are worth 10, and all other cards are worth their face value. The person with the highest total wins. You can actually play this game and the poker game at the same time. This way there can be a winner for the poker hand and a winner for the highest point total.

Turkey bowl

Have your own "turkey bowl." Many leagues around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays will give out turkeys to anyone that gets strikes in three predetermined frames in the same game. Maybe you and your teammates would rather not bring in a turkey for the winner. Then you might consider having each bowler contribute one dollar to the pot every game they bowl. Like the Virginia Lottery, the pot keeps growing until you have a winner. On the slim chance that two people do it in the same game, then the high score in that game will be the tiebreaker.

Longshots

A final suggestion is a game that rewards people for making longshot splits. In this game there will be a prize for anyone making a split, with a bigger prize for the harder splits. This is rather simple and can be played along with the other games. Actually, if you think about it, you can play all four of these games while you bowl.

Prizes can be determined by your team depending on how much money your teammates wish to contrib-ute to the prize funds of these games. Remember, the whole idea of league bowling is to have fun and hopefully this will help if your team realizes that winning the league championship is a long shot.

Gil Sanchez is a freelance bowling writer for the News & Messenger. He is a member of the Bowling Writ-ers Association of America and the United States Bowling Congress Advisory Council. Reach him at 703-587-6792 or at gsanchez@insidenova.com.