Candlepin bowling is what most New Englanders call “real bowling”. It features thinner and taller pins and the bowling balls are much smaller, making it much more challenging for bowlers to hit their target. Each bowler gets 3 balls, hoping to knock down as many pins as possible, out of 10 pins. If you knock all 10 down with 1 ball, it’s called a strike, if you knock all 10 pins down with 2 balls, it’s called a spare.

Fun Facts about candlepin bowling: The first game was played in 1880 in Worcester, Massachusetts. In bowling, “turkey” refers to getting three strikes in a row because historically tournaments often awarded live turkeys when a bowler got 3 strikes.