Vacationland picks up bowling championship

BREWER – All this business about a Maine team never having won the current version of the World Team Candlepin Championship can now be put to rest. The Vacationland Bowling Center team of Biddeford took care of that Saturday afternoon at the Bangor-Brewer Bowling Lanes.

But they didn’t take the express lane to the title in the 16th edition of the event. In fact, the team was sitting wheels off in a ditch when the trophy landed in its collective lap.

Bangor’s Chip Carson has been at the center of candlepin controversy for years. And whether any of the adjectives that have been used to describe him during that period are true, even his detractors admit he is one of those bowlers who can make or break a team.

Bowling for the Lucky 7 team out of Massachusetts, Carson had the championship in his hands Saturday. Having thrown four straight marks in the final four boxes, including picking up a tremendously difficult 1-5-7-10 split in the 10th, the entire championship came down to one final ball.

Carson simply needed three pins to tie and four to win the match. While that sounds easy enough, what happened to Carson happens far more often than not in candlepin bowling. He punched two pins. His ball hit the two pin and drove through the eight without so much as a quiver from the remaining eight pins.

Vacationland won the three-string total-pins championship match 1821-1820.

“It happens,” Charles Milan III Maine said. “It happens to everyone. I’d rather lose by 100 than that way.”

He should know. His Maine Heat team was a Carson victim in one of the morning’s quarterfinal matches.

It was an emotional quarterfinal with more than merely the right to advance on the line. Bragging rights also were at risk. Carson practically grew up at the Brewer bowling facility and had bowled with Maine Heat. In fact, two other members of Lucky 7, John Czarnicki and Rich Clark, are former Heat members. But the main bone of contention stems from Maine Heat captain James Milan’s belief that Carson should have been wearing an orange Maine Heat bowling shirt for the past week.

“[Carson] stood here two years ago during the tournament and told me he’d be back with us the next time the tournament was here,” Milan said.

So a slugfest ensued with both five-man teams throwing counterpunch after counterpunch. Maine Heat’s Nate Nealey of Westbrook threw a three-string total of 433, James Milan of Brewer had 418, and Nealey’s father, Russ, of Otis, tossed a 409.

Carson countered with a 432, Jon Winchal had 416, while Dick O’Connell turned in a 408 and Clark added a 407.

It was high quality drama that came down to the final two boxes of the match and Carson had the final answer with a double strike that produced a 2004-1981 victory for Lucky 7.

“It couldn’t happen any worse for us than what just happened,” James Milan said. “Anybody but him.”

Carson finds encounters in these tournaments with his ex-teammates to be emotional.

“My heart goes out to those guys. But when you’re competing, you don’t let up,” Carson said. “I think people need to let this go. I shouldn’t be the focus of this. People need to get by this.”

Still, Carson got a lot of satisfaction from beating his old team.

“It’s what you dream of. Being up there with the match on the line and throwing a double,” Carson said.

For James Milan, it was yet another chance to finally win the only candlepin tournament of any significance that his father, Charles Milan III, had never won. Milan, a 23-time Maine state champion, has never been able to break through in the team world championship.

“I don’t know,” James Milan said. “We really bowled well. We had a strong team. Those two scores in the quarterfinal were the top scores of the week. It was another loss. We just found another way to lose.”

Vacationland picked up $10,000 for winning the championship while Lucky 7 won $5,000.

The Biddeford team reached the final by beating Bowlarama of Nova Scotia 1804-1774 in the quarterfinals and Salisbury Big Stop of New Brunswick 1839-1837 in the semifinals.

After beating Maine Heat in the morning, Lucky 7 earned a trip to the final by defeating Maria’s Sub of Scituate, Mass., 1938-1863.