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Question
#13004. Dreamer61dpl
asks:
What game, a variation on an existing game, did Tommy Ryan invent in 1909 Toronto, Canada?
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essaychess
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Five-Pin Bowling
 http://www.cshof.ca/accessible/hm_profile.php?i=458
There are few uniquely Canadian sports and, of those, five-pin bowling is among the most popular. The game's inventor, Thomas F. (Tommy) Ryan was a character on the Toronto sports scene for over 50 years, as distinctive as the game he created. Born in Guelph, Ontario, he was an accomplished baseball player who once turned down an offer to pitch for the Baltimore Orioles of the Eastern International League. When he was 18, Ryan moved to Toronto to make it big.
He dabbled in many ventures and in 1905 opened the first ten-pin bowling alley in Canada, the Toronto Bowling Club.
One story has it that the gentlemen who took to bowling over their lunch hour complained that the 10-pin game took too long to complete and that lifting the 16-pound ball left them fatigued for their afternoon's labours. In response, Ryan experimented with other bowling games, such as duck pins and candle pins, which he adapted for his own purposes. His father shaved down five of the tenpins on a lathe, while Ryan secured a 2½-pound ball and created a new scoring system. When it turned out that the lighter pins would fly around the alley creating quite a din, Ryan installed protective screens on each alley and wrapped a rubber band around each pin to reduce the noise they made when they were knocked down.
By 1908, Ryan had established five-pin bowling. However, he never patented his invention and thus never profited from it. In 1909, Charles R. Gibson opened a series of five-pin alleys from Toronto to Victoria, and a Canadian institution was born.
[Added reference - McG]
Jul 22 01, 7:00 PM
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