‘What are they doing down there?’: Blink and you’ll miss one of Dartmouth’s sports institutions
If you were cruising down Pleasant Street at a steady pace, you wouldn’t be the first to miss one of Halifax Regional Municipality’s three available lawn bowling clubs.
The Dartmouth Lawn Bowls Club, founded in 1987 and located right next to the fire station on Pleasant Street, is home to some 170 paying members of all ages and skills. If you’ve walked down Pleasant Street or worked nearby, you may have noticed the club (and its players) down slope from the sidewalk.
Sue Ellen Horne, a former lab worker at Dartmouth General Hospital, didn’t even realize her retirement passion was just next door.
“I used to say, ‘What are they doing down there?’” she told the Post. “I worked in the lab with a woman who was already bowling. She said, ‘You should try it.’ So when I retired, I did come down, and I loved it right from the start.”
Horne, competitive by nature, is drawn to the simplicity of the sport; the game isn’t physically taxing, and can be enjoyed by casual and hardcore players alike. The mental component is where much of lawn bowling’s depth comes in, an aspect that is appreciated by its playerbase.
“I believe one of our men is in a nursing home,” said Horne. “Someone picks him up, brings him here, and he’s back to what he remembers and loves.
“He’s still very good at it. I think that is very beneficial.”
It doesn’t take long after seeing people walking on the greens or conversing in the clubhouse to understand why the Dartmouth Lawn Bowls Club continues to draw its membership. But a key question remains: how did the club end up here on Pleasant Street?
John Siteman is the public relations chair of the Dartmouth Lawn Bowls Club, and a strong player in his own right, having competed for Team Nova Scotia and traveled internationally for the sport.
He said that areas such as the Dartmouth Commons and the now-Mount Edward Ballfield were considered before settling on the current location on Pleasant Street.
“It’s just where the roads kind of connect,” Siteman told the Post. “We have a major benefit with visibility. Most [other] clubs are, unfortunately, very sheltered in their locations.”
The club continues to push for growth in various ways; they’ve secured federal funding via the New Horizons for Seniors Program to purchase lawn bowling equipment, as well as looking for ways to combat the stereotype that lawn bowling is an “old person’s game.”
“The sport has been very much changing to be a sport for all ages — all ages, all abilities,” said Siteman. “At the last world championship, the average age was under the age of 30.”
For competitive play, ages can be much younger; at 19, England’s Jamie-Lea Winch was the youngest lawn bowler to ever compete at the Commonwealth Games. According to Bowls Canada, however, the average player age in Canada is around 62. The club is adding more elements to appeal to the competitive streak of some of its members; however, at its base, the club is a social gathering. Horne said that after the first year as a member, fellow players become like a second family.
“Every holiday, they have a meal that is prepared and everyone sits down and eats together,” she said. “It’s social. It’s an activity. It’s companionship.”