Welcome to the Spring 2026 bowling season! We start bowling on January 27, same location and same time as usual. You can submit roster changes until Monday, January 26 and team names until noon Tuesday, August 27.

This season things are shaken up a little more than they've normally, as five people who bowled with us last season are not returning this time. Four of them have been replaced -- one is a former sub and two are rookies. With the team numbers re-randomized to mix up the schedule, Here are the teams as they are currently known. this list will be updated as changes are sent between now and the start of bowling:

1. 3 Pins and a Gutter: Chris Lenz, Jeremy Varnell, Jesse Sauerbrei (promoted from sub), and JoAnne Barber. Jesse is taking the place of Jacob Holst.
2. Squid Row: Chris Windham, Ben Spencer, Dennis Walling, and Matthew Taylor. Scott Thompson is not returning, but unless there is a last-minute change he will not be replaced since they still have a full roster.
3. (Unnamed Team 3): Buck Nasty, Seth Gunderson, Nick Kinney, Ian Estey, and Aaron Barber. (Rotating team of 5). They are the defending champions, we'll see if their plan of fielding 5 of the 4 best bowlers gets them to clinch even earlier or backfires.
4. (Unnamed Team 4): Ryan Sisco (re-joining after acting as a sub lately), Lindsay Sargent (new bowler and automatically JoAnne's nemesis), Jon Little (also a new bowler -- a recent transplant from Omaha who has some past league experience), and Dustin Schmeltz.
5. Walk-Offs: Brian Schaben, Carl Mueller, Chris Hagan, Kurt Fredrickson, and Mike Fitzgerald (rotating team of 5)
6. (Unnamed Team 6): Jim Koger, Tim Deddens, Scott Murdock, and AJ Hofmann.

The predictions for the first week think Squid Row will sweep 3 Pins and a Gutter, due in part to Matt Taylor getting to start off on his new favorite lanes. The results for the match between Team 3 and Team 4 and expected to be more mixed -- though really anything could happen since this match features one team who hasn't submitted their rotation schedule yet and another team with two bowlers we have no data for. Finally, the match between Walk-Offs and Team 6 is expected to be a sweep in Team 6's favor, though we don't yet have the rotation schedule from Walk-Off's either so it really depends on who they send.

Fees are $285 per person if paid throughout the season, or $245 if paid in advance. For those of you on rotating teams of 5 — what we need from you is the equivalent payment of four bowlers since only 4 of you can bowl at a time. So $228 if you pay throughout the season, or $196 if you pay in advance. FOR EITHER TEAM SIZE, the deadline to get the pre-pay discount is Week 3. Send your payments via Venmo to @scooterjm and if you are asked to enter the last 4 digits of a telephone number, use 4466. Or scan the QR code shown here.

If you choose not to pre-pay, please stay on top of making payments so you don't have a big bill at the end of the season. NEW THIS SEASON: Because we have had multiple close calls with funding the past couple of years, anyone who does not pre-pay MUST make reasonable good-faith payments throughout the season. No longer will waiting to pay at the very end be allowed.

Things to watch for this season:

• FIRST OFF we must take care of something that was missed last season: In week 15, game 2 of last season, AJ Hofmann’s final ball of the 2nd frame knocked down his 200,000th career pin! It was an open ([8|1]), but enough to get the job done!

  Meanwhile, Jeremy Varnell and JoAnne Barber are both very likely to reach 100,000 career pins during the final weeks of this season.

   

• While he’d have to do some work to get there, Seth Gunderson has the potential to earn his 250th career 200+ game this season.

   

• Matthew Taylor’s next 600 series will break him out of a 3-way-tie and place him firmly in 5th place for most career 600+ series. With a lot of work he also has the potential to catch Aaron Barber this season – who is the only active league member ahead of him in this regard.

   

• Dustin Schmeltz is the longest-tenured current league member to have never been on a team that was in first-place, at 142 weeks. If he doesn’t achieve1st Place at least once by St. Patrick’s Day, he will pass Jake Parrot to become the overall league leader in this category. Come on, Dustin, don’t get this award!

   

• Our league has not seen a 700+ series since Matt Taylor rolled a 700 even in week 9 of Spring 2021. Last season Nick Kinney almost did it with a 698 series – the closest anyone has been since 2021 – but thanks to a couple of opens could not find the last two pins needed. Let this be the season someone breaks the curse!

   

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  (AI generated dreck, so no offense intended if these are not real players or if the flags and/or uniforms are screwed up.)

  There will be NO BOWLING on the final Tuesday of March (March 31), due to an important soccer watch party that night. (Croatia vs Brazil, which makes it obvious why the facility is needed.) The online bowling schedule currently shows us bowling Monday that week, but that actually will not be able to happen so we will announce a new schedule soon. Naturally, we are all welcome to attend that March 31 watch party.

   

We hope you all have a great time this season!