THUNDER BAY -- Perfect games are a rarity in five-pin bowling.
In fact in 2015, just six scores of 450 were recorded across Canada.
Last week, Thunder Bay’s Dan Taylor joined the select club, the win helping lead his team to victory at the 2016 Open Provincial Championships in Timmins.
Days later, the 29-year-old Taylor is still in shock.
“I’ve come close once, I had 11 in a row and I let one pin up,” Taylor said. “Basically to get this it was a tearful joy is what I was feeling. It was pretty amazing. I’ve just been on cloud nine ever since.”
It’s the first time in 38 years that a perfect game was bowled at the provincial championships.
The second the final pin fell, the crowd behind him erupted, the high-fives started flying, Taylor just happy he was able to complete the task.
“I knew there was a crowd behind me and with every strike as you get closer and closer the crowd seems to get more intense,” said Taylor, a nurse at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
“There were so many hands I wanted to get them all. It was pretty surreal, pretty amazing. It just felt great.”
Unlike a baseball pitcher on the verge of tossing a perfect game, the final result is all on the bowler in five-pin.
It’s all about getting into a rhythm and not letting the accomplishment get into your head, said Taylor, who won $9,000 for the feat.
“Up until the eighth strike, I didn’t think about it too much. I just wanted to win. I just wanted to beat my opponent. On the ninth one, you’re throwing up prayers, just get the ball onto the lane, just get the ball onto the lane,” he said.
“It was just perfect, right-pocket shots and it felt super good. The intensity, you just can’t describe it.”
Making the moment that much sweeter was the fact his father Bob, the team’s coach, was on hand to witness it.
The elder Taylor said it was pretty exciting.
“At the end of it, I just leapt up in the air screaming for him. It was quite the thing,” he said.
Taylor fell short of the individual title, losing the final to Cambrian North’s Kevin Freeland 326-241.
Thunder Bay teams swept the men’s, women’s and mixed titles in Timmins. Nationals are scheduled for June 1-5 in Regina.
