What Changed?
The national Championship format is moving from a series of seven individual championships spread out across several months and geographic regions to a single prestigious Canadian Lawn Bowling Championships hosted over six days.
Why Change?
The current format of seven individual championships requires seven different hosts creates a series of challenges at the national and provincial level:
- Shortage of venues to host events for playdowns and national championships
- Congestion in the calendar that leaves little time for other events. Did you know that in 2023 it will take 35 days to complete outdoor national championships and one province has assigned 33 days to provincial qualifier events. This represents almost half of the 2023 outdoor season.
- Redundancies in expenses across seven events for items such as player airfares, venue costs, umpire support, volunteers, etc.
The new format will not only reduce costs and reduce the number of venues required to host events, but it will greatly increase marketing appeal of the event by bringing together seniors, youth and athletes with disabilities at one prestigious event. A single event will also allow for investment into greens quality and player experience. Adding a festival component to the event will also increase the attraction to non-bowling spectators from the surrounding community. In the event that a host is not able to accommodate a single event, consideration may be given to hosting the Para and Youth events at a separate location.
