Amid dwindling membership, Quebec’s lawn bowling champ looks to grow the sport

Lawn bowling is seeing new life in Montreal, where champion Ryan Craig and fellow members are working to revive the sport and attract new players.

When Ryan Craig moved from Northern Ireland to Pierrefonds three years ago, one of the first things he did was join a lawn bowling club.

“I came through the game at a young age because of my grandmother,” said Craig. “She was an international coach for Ireland. And she gave me some coaching, and I just fell in love with the game.”

Craig won the Quebec Men’s Single Lawn Bowling championship several weeks ago and will be going to compete in the national championship in Edmonton this summer.

“The trophy was first played for in 1925. And that was a pretty special moment to win that,” he said.

The game of bowls, also known as lawn bowling, traces its roots back to ancient Egypt. It flourished in Scotland and, from there, was exported around the world, including to Quebec, where it was once a popular sport.

In the last few decades, Craig said lawn bowling clubs have struggled to stay alive.

“We’ve probably gone from 2500 members down to 500 playing members. We used to have around 11 or 10 clubs. Now we are down to five.”

The city owns the Pierrefonds Lawn Bowling Club, but it is mostly run by volunteers who organize fundraisers throughout the year.

Membership is around $150 for the year and is open to all ages.

“It’s low impact, so that is the nice part. Anybody can do it,” said member Carolyn McGarr. “I’m also a curler, and it’s it’s a different type of sport, but the strategy is exactly the same.”

McGarr said it is also a social game, and it offers company to those who may be isolated.

“During the pandemic, we lost a lot of members to Covid, and it allowed their spouses to have somewhere to go, somewhere to share their feelings and their loss,” she said.

Member John Devlin said it’s important to introduce the sport to children at a young age.

“Once they see it and try it, they’ll be hooked,” he said. “We need to try and get away from the perspective that it’s an old person’s game.”