Photo courtesy HJ's 5-Pin Bowling

By Tanner Smith

HJ's 5 Pin Bowling

Alberta Bowling provincials roll into Grande Prairie

Mar 21, 2024 | 1:30 PM

The Alberta Bowling Provincials will be taking over HJ’s 5 Pin Bowling for Easter weekend.

Starting on Wednesday, March 27, provincial’s will return to the north for the first time in five years, as they cycle hosts, with over 100 bowlers, coaches, and loved ones expected to be in Grande Prairie.

Owner of HJ’s 5 Pin Bowling, Gerald Hafner explained the format of the tournament; “March 27, is the single’s starting at 8:30 in the morning going all day, and then March 28, 29, and 30 is the team events which will end on Saturday. You’re bowling 20 games, you’re bowling each zone five times, it’s not just bowl once and you kicked my butt and were done, you got chances for redemption.”

The five zones; Edmonton, Calgary, South, Central and North, will have three teams competing, a Men’s and Women’s team made up of six people, along with a mixed team of seven.

These teams will compete to represent Alberta at the Bowling Nationals held in June, in both team and single events.

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The tournament will then wrap up on Saturday evening, with a banquet set to take place, having everyone “travel home on Sunday, so they can be with their families.”

Hafner, who is “honoured to be the coach of Team North” on top of his other duties; says in the past these provincials have been dominated by the Edmonton zone and he “doesn’t want to jinx it” but the north has been making a push.

“They have so much depth right, there a bigger city obviously, and Calgary is always in there too, and the South, Central and North have been regrowing like you’re building a hockey team. This year the North is stronger than we’ve ever been.”

This is the first year Hafner and his wife have hosted the provincials, but he does expect some great support from the Peace region.

“For that, Grande Prairie and area have always been amazing, we tie ourselves in with the littler bowling alleys, like you got Hythe out there, and Girouxville, we have our bowlers go out there and bowl in their little alley and it goes both ways. Fairview and Dawson Creek, all of them, we all are a close-knit family in this area. The fan turnout though, I think we will get a good turnout, we have the bleachers set up for everybody. It’s going to be loud.”

He adds the region has already stepped up big time, providing volunteer support.”We got a ton of volunteers showing up to help us, you gotta have pin runners, people sitting in the back, cause sometimes the pins don’t fall the way the computer says they do and you got to have someone resetting them or untangling them, or whatever. Then you got people doing the 50/50’s and things like that.”

The provincials will get rolling on Wednesday, March 27, at 8:30 a.m. with the single events, followed up by teams running through Thursday, March 28, to Saturday, March 30.

Anyone wanting more information or interested in attending the provincial can find additional information by visiting HJ’s 5 Pin Bowling.