Hello everyone! Hope you all had a great holiday season!  After a much needed two weeks off, it's now time to turn my attention back to bowling and hopefully finish out the season with a bang.  Minor injuries aquired so far through the season have subdued, and I feel as focused and motivated as ever!

First of all, my apologies to those of you staying up to date on my blog for not posting about the Tri-Regional in Reno.  Truthfully, there wasn't much worth writing about.  The whole trip was in shambles from the get go, and between all of the missed flights, traffic, snow, and even a 2 a.m. wake up call from Reno's boys in blue for welfare check fraud (Don't worry they had the wrong room!) I just felt it was best to let what happened in Reno, stay in Reno.  If you are still curious about how it went, I'll sum it up.  I bowled terrible.  Wrong equipment, wrong surface, wrong everything.  If I would have had a ball to put the snow tires on with, I might have had a look, but honestly, I don't think anybody was going to beat the lefties out there.  They had the world.  I've never seen so many left handers make the cut in one tournament in my life.  But hey, to those out there that took advantage of what they had, more power to you!  I can't say I havn't bowled tournaments where the righties had the look and the lefties were shut out.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Medford, OR to bowl the rabbit squad for the PBA Lumber Liquidators Championship.  It will be a tall order to make it, but I have a couple new Columbia Momentum's drilled up that should have a pretty decent look.  I've matched up well on the Cheetah pattern so far this year, and I feel like I am in a good situation to make a run at something big.  I'll do my best to keep you all updated.  Until next time!

One game.  After everything was said and done in this tournament, for me it really just came down to one game.  This weekend, we were bowling on the cheetah pattern at Bowlaway Lanes in Walla Walla, Washington.  The lane surface is Brunswick Anvil Lane and they were in very good shape.  The condition of the lanes, when coupled with the cheetah pattern, made for some very high scoring during the course of the weekend.  Steve Stevens, or "The Lane Dude" as many know him, put down volume 3, the highest volume of oil used in regionals. 

I half expected the pattern to play similar to the last time we bowled on Cheetah, which was at Skyway Park Bowl in Seattle.  I also figured that due to the age of the lanes, we'd be bowling on more oil than before.  I knew that the last time we bowled on cheetah, the ticket was to use equipment that got down the lane through the heads with ease.  Too much surface created some pretty violent over-reaction.  Typically, you want to play this pattern way out as close to the gutter as you can.  It's a short pattern (35 ft), so you need to give your ball plenty of time to react, and extreme outside angles are usually the best choice.  With that in mind, I went into the practice session with a lot of polished equipment to provide easy length.

The practice session was a mixed blessing for me.  First of all, the second ball I threw nearly ended up horrible.  I began my approach, and just as I entered my slide....

Well, there was no slide.  Before I know it, I'm four feet down lane with my back end sitting in the right channel, and my feet in the left.  Everybody looked pretty worried, but I just got back up and laughed it off. I continued practicing, and decided I had my best look with the Hammer Black Widow Pearl.  After practice was over, I had the pleasure of bowling the Pro-Am with the juniors. It was a blast as always!  Any time I get to bowl with the regulars at the center, it's always a great deal of fun, and it's something I truly enjoy doing.  After the Pro-Am though, I was beginning to figure out why everyone looked so concerned when I took my spill.  My right hip was turning a new shade of purple, and it was pretty sore.

Qualifying began just the way I had hoped it wouldn't.  I was making the cross with Corey Husted, Mike Danielson, Scot Archibal, and my dad who came with me to bowl as a guest.  During our 15 minutes of warm up, I couldn't quite get loose.  To make matters worse, the lanes seemed to be playing tighter than they had in practice, which isn't entirely uncommon.  My reaction was absolutely terrible.  I was sailing the ball right through my break point, and wrongfully attributed it to poor leverage at the foul line.  In reality however, it was just bad ball reaction.  I struggled for an opening game of 152, effectively digging myself in a giant hole, and that is something that isn't easily afforded when the scoring pace is this high.  Games 2-6, I turned into a whole new person.  I switched to a very tame Hammer Black widow with 4000 abralon.  The surface of the ball gave me the extra reaction I needed, and the tame layout provided a nice smooth transition.  I pulled myself back in the hunt for the cut to the tune of a 230 average the next four games.  Game 7 I whiffed an easy 7 pin late, but squeaked out a 198 by striking out in the 10th.  Going into the last game, I was sitting at +77.  13th place, which was the number who would be making the cut, was projected at +140.  It wasn't going to be impossible to make it, but things certainly weren't looking my way.  I needed a big last game, and I needed the number to come back to me somehow.  I went into game 8 trying to throw the Hail Mary, but a 258 game just wasn't quite enough.  My final total - +135.  13th Place - +161.

All in all, it was still a great weekend. Erik Hohlbein ended up winning, as he did the last time we bowled on Cheetah.  Congratulations go out to him! The staff at Bowlaway Lanes was great and I thank them immensely for taking such great care of us.  I really hope that we come back next year, because this was easily one of my favorite stops.  Also, to all the folks that came out to bowl the pro-am, you guys were fantastic.  I should be getting my new Columbia equipment fairly soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.  Until then, time to start getting ready for Reno!

-Shawn

Well, it's the first of November, and the PBA Northwest regional tour season is beginning to wind down.  There are only 3 tournaments left, including Reno in December.  I feel like I'm really close to success in these PBA events. This year in particular has been a real learning experience.  But, that is to be expected.  I know the learning curve is a large one, and I am pleased with my progress so far.  I've notched close to 10 events in my first full year on the regional tour, and I'm starting to feel more comfortable, particularly on the PBA's animal patterns, which I had never bowled on before this year.

I'm setting up this bowlspace page, and this blog, so that the people who I have the pleasure of meeting along the way, spectators at the PBA events, the kids and the adults whom I have had the pleasure of working with, can follow along with me as I bowl.  It will also serve as a place to keep in touch with everybody.  I'll do my best to post a blog after every tournament.  If there is any important news that I need to pass along, I'll post one for that too.  I'm going to try and make this as interactive as possible.  Pictures, videos, and whatever else I can put together will be integrated into this page.  If there are questions, please feel free to ask.  My email address is ShawnMinnig@gmail.com.  I do my best to follow up with everyone, be it through this page or an email.

In other news, I've just signed a ball contract with Columbia 300.   In one of my upcoming blogs, I'll try to post my new stuff, complete with layouts and pictures, to show how I'm getting my new arsenal to be tournament ready.

Until next time...

-Shawn