North American Bowling News
The Game of Kegel
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| A Kegel Alley (Photo courtesy 'Kegelbarn.com.au') |
Oh, how much we learn from cartoons! Back in the heyday of duckpins, circa 1960—THAT was the age of awareness. Who would’ve thought that when Barney Rubble asked Fred Flintstone if he wanted to go “kegeling”, the animators of “The Flintstones” at Hanna Barbera, and the voices for said characters (Mel Blanc and Alan Reed) already knew something that we would only today just be learning? When Flintstone questioned Rubble about the term “kegeling”, Barney, just in passing, said “It’s another word for bowling.”
“Kegel” is indeed more than just another name for bowling. Moreover, it’s an intriguing variation, ultimately credited with being the forerunner of tenpin bowling.
Kegel, or Kegeln, is a German variation of bowling, played on a lane that is 19.5 meters (about 64 feet) long and 1.3 meters (approx- imately 51 inches) wide. The pins are set in a diamond pattern, (as in the game of Skittles) but much wider spaced than tenpin bowling.
There are two types of balls, which are made of a very thick, solid wood. The most common one has two holes—one for the thumb and one for the middle finger, while the more advanced player may use a ball with no finger holes. The balls come in two basic weights: 6 lbs. and also 4 lbs (for smaller children).
The approach and foul line are similar to that of conventional bowling, except there is a thin rope at the foul line which spans the width of the lane. The rope is 22 centimeters (about 8˝ inches) off the floor, and the ball must be rolled on the lane in front of the foul line, in order to pass cleanly under the rope. If the ball does not touch the track (center delivery strip on the lane) before the line in Kegel, a foul is called, and no points will be awarded, regardless of how many pins fall.
The lane for a kegel alley is made out of hard wood that is concave in shape, that is, the lane gets wider the farther down the lane you go, which makes it more difficult to manage the ball. If your ball falls off into the gutter, or Pudel Lane as it is called in Kegel, you lose 1 point, instead of no points being awarded, as in conventional bowling.
A bowler rolls a maximum of 3 balls per frame. There are no dedicated bowling shoes, so a player can participate in street shoes.
There are no markings on the lane apart from a line for the foul-line on a Kegel track, unlike tenpin lanes which have the arrows. A fully automatic machine resets the pins using string setters through a computerized control system and the balls are automatically returned via a gravity fed ball return system.
There are several variations of Kegel in regards to scoring. In some methods, a player might bowl 3 balls per frame in which the pins are completely reset after each ball. Other games allow a bowler on a team only 1 ball per frame. Also used is the standard method of using 3 balls per round to completely knock down one set of pins. Most games have 9 rounds (frames).