It was a great day this past Saturday in Truro as the Cobequid Lawn Bowls Club hosted their Cobequid Open Pairs tournament! It was beautiful weather all day with lots of great shotmaking from all the teams- who came from all across Nova Scotia and even as far away as PEI. Congratulations to Jim Byrne and Sandi Messer on winning this year's title! Thanks to Cobequid for hosting the return of this great club event to the LBNS Calendar. Full Results 1st Place- Jim Byrne and Sandi Messer (Cobequid LBC) 2nd Place- Peter Saunders and Dave Mitchell (Cobequid LBC) 3rd Place- Dennis Mullane and Alexander Vance (Wanderers LBC) 4th Place- George Lidstone and Myrna Sanderson (Sherwood LBC- Prince Edward Island)
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It was a great weekend this past Saturday in Dartmouth when 16 teams took to the greens of the Dartmouth Lawn Bowls Club for the Janet Merry Mixed Pairs as hosted by the Bedford Lawn Bowls Club. Bedford put on an excellent show once again for this long running club event on the LBNS calendar in a new venue this year. The event was a great success- with excellent weather, great shot-making all day long and lots of fun on and off the greens. The Janet Merry Mixed Pairs trophy was presented this year by the Bedford Lawn Bowls Club’s newest life member and longtime provincial representative Carolyn Ulch. Congratulations to Jim Byrne and Vivian Condran of Dartmouth who won this year’s championship. Thanks to everyone who took part and to Bedford for hosting another great event. Up next on the LBNS calendar is the Cobequid Open Pairs this Saturday in Truro. Janet Merry Mixed Pairs Full Results: 1st Place- Jim Byrne/Vivian Condran (Dartmouth) 2nd Place- Gordon Foster/Heather Salmon (Dartmouth) 3rd Place- Doug McLearn/Betty MacAlpine (Bedford) 4th Place- John Driscoll/Linda Deveau (Dartmouth/Bedford) 5th Place- Raymond MacDonald/Charmaine Cameron (Dartmouth) 6th Place- Joyce Anderson/Larry Anderson (Dartmouth) It’s been a few days since we updated our LBNS followers, so here is a bit of what’s been going on as sectional week at the Australian Open wrapped up on Friday and we made our way into Week 2 of competition (there’s lots of content- so I’ll have to split this into a few posts):
Men’s Singles- My Men’s Singles section at Benowa was quite an interesting one as I faced 3 young guys from all over Australia. Overall, I put in some decent bowls considering how quick we got on the greens here- but the others were just way too consistent. Learned a lot though to go into the next competitions. On sectional Sunday, we had a rare first week off day for both my mom and I- so we got to head to Paradise Country wildlife sanctuary to visit our friends the kangaroos and koalas! They have a fun breakfast event where they teach you all about the koalas- which we’ve enjoyed every year we’ve been down here. Women’s Pairs- Mom and her partner Karen Curtis from South Australia played their section down at the Tugun Bowls Club on the southern part of the Gold Coast. It’s always a highlight as the greens are in the landing path for Coolangatta Airport (the main airport serving southeast Queensland outside of Brisbane. Overall, it was a interesting section, where mom and Karen gave all 3 teams a good run for their money as they took a former AO Pairs winner to the limit (lost by 4 or 5 points within the last few ends) and got a strong win in game 2. Men’s Pairs- Tuesday sent me and my teammate Chris (who I’ve played with for the past 3 AO’s) to familiar ground at Mudgeeraba Bowls Club on the interior of the Gold Coast for our sectional rounds. It was probably the best I felt bowling here in eons- as we went 1-1-1 with all 3 games being extremely competitive and in 2 of them- right down to the last shot! Women’s Singles- Next discipline was the Women’s Singles as mom headed up to the amazing facility at Club Helensvale. They just finished a multi-million dollar renovation to add a new covered synthetic- which my mom was excited to play on. The day had some challenges- but she learned a lot playing against some talented players from across the Oceania region. Men’s Fours- Thursday sent us back to Mudgeeraba again for a great day on the greens with the Men’s Fours as Chris and I were joined by Lindsay Paterson (a great guy from Adelaide that was also looking to play in the event many months ago when we were looking) and longtime British Columbia representative Earl Luk. It was an excellent day for all of us as we really worked well as a team and it showed on the scoreboard as we won 2 great games against top sides from here in Australia and had the 3rd game for the section go right to the last bowl. Overall, I was super proud of how we all played- especially as I hadn’t skipped a side here since 2017 when our Nova Scotian friends Keith Finck and Bill Wesley joined us here. Women’s Fours- Our final Week 1 events sent us down to Coolangatta Bowls Club on the far side of the Gold Coast for mom’s Women’s Fours section as her and Karen were joined by Joyce and Dawn (both from South Australia). It was an interesting day- as they got a convincing win against a former AO Pairs winner (playing with multiple current and former Queensland reps) and took 10 points off of the favourites on paper to win the whole thing. Overall a great day! Mixed Pairs- One of the popular events of the AO is the Mixed Pairs- which due to simply the vast amount of entries in the main event has been a support event on the Sunday of Week 2. It’s been insanely popular- as Bowls Australia said they filled up the two venues at Musgrave Hill and Robina in under a day (84 teams plus a wait list of at least that!). We played at Club Robina and had a fun day even if it didn’t end up showing on the scoreboard. It was nice to meet the teams we did and have some fun! We also had some other weekend fun- including the Mega Bowl Singles- where they had 128 players in a fun one bowl singles shootout for a pile of cash! Also got to cheer on our friends in a bunch of different spots around the Gold Coast and do a bit of commentary with Bowls Australia’s Rinkside Live coverage. As we get started with week 2, we’ll be competing a bit more in a few spots along with cheering on our fellow Canadians along the way as we head towards finals on Thursday and Friday of this week. Thanks to all of you back home for the support as we compete down here in this amazing event. Looking forward to sharing even more stuff (both photo and video) on our adventures). It was a great weekend in Bridgetown for the Bridgetown Lawn Bowling Club’s first club tournament of the year- the Joe Tidd Memorial Open Triples! Congratulations to the Bridgetown based trio of Dave Veinot, Jerry Publow and Gerald Hackenschmidt- who topped this year’s field. If you missed out on this event, make sure to get your entries in for the EW “Silver Fox” Foster Open Pairs in September. Up next on the LBNS schedule is the Janet Merry Mixed Pairs- hosted by Bedford and to be played this year at the Dartmouth Lawn Bowls Club. Congratulations to our LBNS honourees who were recognized at the 2024 Support4Sport Awards (which took place on June 1st at the Halifax Convention Centre). These recipients were selected by nominations from member clubs.
It’s been quite a busy past few days for us as we got to the Gold Coast for the Australian Open. The day after we got into the country, we hit the greens for the Mermaid Beach Pre-Australian Open 2 Day Pairs. Though we finished 1-4, we had 3 of our 4 losses within 3-4 points (so all very competitive results which could have gone either way). The last game was fun as we faced a local team who were quite enjoyable to play with as both of our teams made some great shots (fortunately best for us on the day). We were lucky enough that in addition to paying down to like 6th place of 42 teams- they also had 8 lucky draw winners of $100 which we ended up taking home some prize money (a first for me in Australia!). On the Friday, we headed to Club Robina for their Winter Triples. On their greens (which run fairly similar speed to that of Dartmouth or maybe slightly faster)- we ended up with a 2-1 record after a great day on the greens to finish 17th out of 42 teams! That night, we headed to Broadbeach to cheer on our Canadian National Team member Ryan Bester in his Worlds Gold Medal rematch against Ireland’s Gary Kelly (which I encourage all of you to watch the live stream of the game as it was quite entertaining). Yesterday, it was a tricky day on the greens for me at Benowa Bowls Club for the Men’s Singles of the Australian Open (the largest event of the tournament with 1,312 players from around the world). In my section, I had three tight battles with some top young players from all over Australia- unfortunately ending off on the wrong end of the scoreline on all of them. Fortunately there are lots of bowls left to go throughout our adventure here in all the events! Tomorrow, we head down to the southern Gold Coast for my mom to start her campaign with the Women’s Pairs of the Australian Open. Thanks to everyone back home for all of the support as we compete down here in the World’s Biggest Bowls Festival! Congratulations to Team Ogden- who won the Dartmouth Lawn Bowls Club's 2nd 5-A-Side Tournament of the season! 6 teams competed all day on June 8th with games in Singles, Pairs, Triples and Fours. Fortunately for all players, the rain held off for what ended up a great day of lawn bowls. Thanks to Kathy Myketyn for organizing, Nancy Latimer and Paul Knox for umpiring, Phil Balcom and Diane Appleby for marking the singles games and Kathy, Vicki Balcom and John Driscoll for providing food for the players. Many thanks to those who assisted in set up and clean up through the tournament. Lots of fun and friendly competition. Looking forward to do it again in the future! Here are your full standings: 1st Place- Terry O’Neil, Steve Ogden, Grahame Usher, Mike Ritchie, Larry Anderson 2nd Place- Dave O’Connell, Heather Salmon, Daniel Sirois, Vicki Balcom, Vivian Condran 3rd Place- Nora Clark, Joyce Anderson, Mayumi Endo, Charmaine Cameron, Debbie Tower 4th Place- Ken Cameron, John Driscoll, Rick Fry, Doug McLearn, Rick Burrows 5th Place- Eleanor Shea, Sue Ellen Horne, Charlie Hilchie, Janet Kelly, Debbie Mitchell (Not pictured 6th Place- Richard Cobb, Nancy Sinclair, Linda Deveau, Betty MacAlpine, Helene Whitford |
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October 2024
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