The Origins of 5
Pin Bowling
Bowling in its primitive form, is over 7000 years old. Sir Flinders
Petrie, a professor of Egyptology at the University of London, found the
origins of bowling, a complete set of pins and balls, in a large tomb in
Egypt dating back to 5200 BC.
The American form of bowling, Tenpin Bowling (circa 1840) came to Canada
in the 1880's. In 1905, a billiard academy owner, Thomas F. (Tommy)
Ryan, decided to install Canada's first regulation tenpin lanes, a 10
lane setup, in the second storey of the Boisseau Building (overtop the
Ryrle-Burks Jewelers) in downtown Toronto, Ontario.
Ryan's establishment, known as the Toronto Bowling Club, resembled a
southern plantation, with potted palm trees, ceiling fans, string
orchestra, piano and an immense lunch counter. Ryan insisted that his
establishment was a very elite and private club, catering only to the
wee-to-do, carriage trade of Toronto society.
Customer complaints about the size and weight of the bowling balls and
the game being too strenuous, led Ryan to experimenting. He had his
father whittle down five of the larger tenpins on a lathe, to
approximately 3/4 of their original size. He then spaced five of these
pins equally on the 91 cm (36") tenpin triangle. Ryan took a hand-sized
hard rubber ball (approximately 12.7 cm (5") in diameter and 1.6 Kg (3
1/2 lbs) in weight) and rolled the ball down the tenpin lane at the five
pins.
Already feeling the game would catch on, Ryan devised a unique scoring
system. He named the numbered pins from left to right 4-2-1-3-5, and
added a third ball to each bowler's frame (turn). Therefore, if all five
pins were bowled down using the allotted three balls for the frame, you
would score 15 points (the total of the numbered pins). Ryan utilized
the bonus scoring system for strikes and spares used in the tenpin game,
so that a perfect game of 12 consecutive strikes totaled 450 points.
Thus in November, 1909, the original sport of 5 Pin bowling was born.
Even though many changes have taken place through the years, the
original concept remains and is enjoyed in hundreds of modern bowling
centers by millions of Canadians each year.
