Now that news is out that the United States Bowling Congress (USBC) has basically said there's no difference scoring-wise between the latest technology of string pins and free-fall pins, concern is starting to grow amongst bowlers that it's only a matter of time before their local centers convert to string pins. And if there's any indication for the future of the sport, the general (early) consensus amongst competitive bowlers is that not many of them seem to be proponents of this new technology.
Be that as it may, Bowlage.com reached out to a few local proprietors and people in power to see if they had any intentions of converting their centers to string pins. Here is what they had to say:
- Norm Ginsberg (Bowlero Senior District Manager Long Island) - "Currently I have no plans on installing string pins in my area."
- Joe LaSpina (Maple Lanes RVC, Jib Lanes, Coram Country Lanes Proprietor) - "no plans to convert."
- Mike Mallwitz (Mallwitz's Island Lanes) - "For us, definitely not any time soon. We have gs-x pinsetters that we installed about 8 years ago, with sync scoring just installed 2 years ago."
- Jeff Ripic (Ripic's Carousel Lanes) - "No, too expensive. Plus we have a good mechanic."
- Mike Scrafano (Lodi Lanes) - "I have 0 intentions to ever convert to string pins, I have the best mechanics in North Jersey & I take pride in that, I don’t need to convert the pin setters to save on maintenance and or payroll especially for those who put in a lot of hours to make this center run as smooth as it does."
- Debbie Stein (GM, Bowlero North Brunswick) - "There are not [plans to convert]. Our center has a high league presence."
- Joe Mormando (Levittown Lanes) - "[We] will always have regular pins."
Obviously this is a very small percentage of proprietors, but clearly they don't have any intention of converting any time soon.
Do you want me to ask your local center proprietor? Send me a DM on Facebook by Clicking Here and let me know what your local center is.
