Paul's Ride Guide: Federation Of Bowls And Cups

I belong to the Inglewood Lawn Bowling Club, which is over near the Zoo Bridge on 12 St and 8 Ave.S.E. in Calgary. There are several leagues within the club and my Wednesday night group is one that goes by the name of the "Federation Of Bowls And Cups". As you can tell by the bit of tongue in cheek name, we're all about having some fun and cameraderie while trying to master the skills of rolling an oval shaped bowl that is biased on one side, down the pitch, to see who can get closest to the 'jack', the little white ball similar to that used in bocci. In fact, lawn bowling is like a combination of bocci ball, curling, bowling and putting, with a need to develop a good strategy, read the greens properly, find the right line, and deliver a bowl with just the right speed to allow for the curl, all so you can get closer than your opponent, or bump him out of the way, or even push the jack toward your own bowls. Sounds simple and the game is easy enough to learn, but so, so difficult to master.
Anyway, our league has been going since the year 2000 and is always full to capacity, with many returnees each year. Each league night we get to enjoy a tasty meal prepared by one of our teams and there's even an award for best meal of the season. Then we play a couple of games with the 17, four person teams who sport names such as "The She-Wolves, The Bowlsheviks and my own squad..."The Bowling Stones".
It's funny that everyone who hears about the lawn bowling makes jibes at me about it being an old folks game, and though I am actually 'old', our league consists of a lot of players between 25 and 40. We enjoy a few wobbly pops while we play, and our game is slightly modified to allow for more players and a speedier game, but we have some awesome bowlers young and old and we have a ton of fun playing.
For the past 8 or 9 years we've been diligently fundraising, knowing that our old building was collapsing and unsalvageable. At the end of last season we knocked it down, saving a few key components, and built our new club house. Other than the land which is leased from the City, we received no grants or any other kind of financial assistance, but managed to pull together and build this cool building. It easn't easy and we're a bit 'house poor' right now but we'll be back on track soon and in the meantime, we'll be bowling!