Provincial lawn bowlers rolling into Oshawa

By Chris Jones/The Oshawa Express

Break out your bowling balls and cut your lawns, the Ontario Provincial Fours lawn bowling tournament is coming to Oshawa.

The 2019 Open Fours Teams tournament will be taking place June 7 to 9, and will be divided into women’s and men’s tournaments.

For the women’s tournament, there are eight teams participating, and there are 21 on the men’s side.

One men’s team consists entirely of members of the Oshawa community. It is made up of Alan Steffen, William McKechnie, Bob Matthews, and Robert Steffen.

Matthews notes the last time this team played together, they won silver in provincials.

“[Winning silver was] good, but these teams are strong as hell that are in there,” says Matthews.

Matthews, who has been doing publicity work for the Oshawa Lawn Bowling Club, says teams come from all over Ontario, ranging from Windsor all the way to the Quebec border. He also notes the team consisting of Bob Bates, Bill Arthur, Ben Van Steijn and John McKenzie are from just down the 401 in Cobourg.

“You could have some of the teams that might have a guy from Windsor, you might have a guy from Toronto, you might have a guy from St. Catharines on that same team,” explains Mattews.

“All of those 21 teams, the men’s teams, they’re probably the strongest teams in Ontario,” says Matthews. “Any one of them could win, so it depends on how you bowl that day, and it’s quite a battle.”

Matthews noted he’s been getting quite a bit of practice in to prepare for the tournament, having recently bowled in Cobourg and Pickering.

The tournament takes place at the Oshawa Lawn Bowling Club, 150 Beatrice Street East, and will begin bright and early on June 7, with the games starting around 9:30 a.m.

The top two teams, winners of gold and silver, will move on to the national tournament and will represent Ontario in Burlington later this summer.