![](http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/newyork/file-172-.jpg")
Local hotels, restaurants, specialty shops and shopping centers figure to score big numbers as dollars spent by the visiting keglers scatter like 10-pins from visitors spending their leisure time eating, touring, shopping and relaxing. While Syracuse takes pride in being a friendly town, athletes and fans are sure to enjoy an especially warm welcome from businesses courting their share of the estimated $40 million jackpot anticipated in the city and outlying areas.
While knocking down pins is the main reason for their visit, the 30,000-plus bowlers arriving with around 14,000 friends and family members will have plenty of time for recreation and travel while in Syracuse. “The interesting fact about this group is they usual- ly only spend about three hours a day bowling on two days,” notes Tracey Kegebein, vice president of convention sales and services at the Syracuse Convention & Visitors Bureau. “The rest of their four to five days here is out and about at restaurants and shopping. They want to enjoy the area. It’s a vacation as much as it is bowling for them.” As the wave of visiting bowlers energizes traditional tourist destinations, the ripple effect will be shared by nearly every type of business in the area. Merchants have done their homework, realizing that in addition to bowling, the guests also enjoy other activities from dining out or golfing to antiques shop- ping or dancing. “There are some local attractions such as the Everson Museum who are doing some of their own promotions,” Kegebein says. “They’ve found a cartoonist {Brewerton’s own Dan Reynolds, profiled in the March 23, 2011, Syracuse New Times and the contributor of this week’s cover art} who relates to bowl- ing that they’re bringing in for an exhibit. Everybody’s trying to do their own little cre- ative piece so the bowlers will stop by to visit those attractions.” The colorful “Bowl Syracuse” logo will overspread the region, festooning store and restaurant windows, advertising billboards and promotional flyers to attract the visiting alley cats, their families and fans. “We are going to paint the city bowling pretty much,” Kegebein promises. “From the minute they get off the airplane, at the train station, sig- nage on the highways, we’ve got banners going up on the Crowne Plaza garage, we’ve got banners on Interstate 690, Visual Tech nologies is putting one up on their building for us. We’ve got signage at the airport; we’ve got hospitality booths and signage there. We have window decals that we are going to be putting out for businesses and attractions to let the bowlers know that they’re welcome.” Behind the stained-glass windows at the Mission Restaurant, 304 E. Onondaga St., management is accustomed to catering to patrons of downtown events and festivities, but few that approach the magnitude of the USBC Women’s Open. “Oh, my God, I think it’s fantastic,” says Mission owner Steve Mor- rison. “We are very hopeful to derive a lot of business from that. It’s such an extended stay that it’s wonderful.” Morrison is planning to keep plenty of staff on hand, in hopes that his convenient loca- tion, an ad in the tournament program and the distribution of flyers will bring in visitors hungry for a taste of the eclectic and creative Pan American menu that has proven popular during other downtown events. “We think consistency is important,” he asserts. “It’s a new thing that they’re try- ing out that we don’t know exactly what to expect. So before we go mixing it up, taking some chances, we’re going to see what it brings. We are expecting to get some business because we do so much business already with anything at the Civic Center—the Rosamond Gifford Lecture Series or Famous Artists or the Syracuse Opera—all those kinds of things bring us business.”
Lane Lovers
Center stage for the entire tournament, running from April 7 through July 3, will be the Oncen- ter, where scores racked up by the nation’s best female bowlers will be displayed with enhanced graphics on the world’s largest mobile score- board. At the same time, a 12-by-9-foot high-defi- nition video screen will project the action above 48 precisely constructed lanes. Bowling will take place from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. every day. The USBC makes certain that the facili- ties meet standards by assuming complete control over the host venue. “We do our own construction,” confirms Matt Cannizzaro, USBC’s media relations manager for the women’s championships. “We do hire some local carpenters and workers to help out with the setup, probably about 30 people, electri- cians and it takes a lot to put it together. It’s really a semi-permanent facility. Really it could stay there.” The Convention & Visitors Bureau will be staffing a hospitality booth at the Oncenter for 14 hours every day of the event, part of a high-tech, painstakingly planned presence. “We have a micro-site specific to bowling linked to www.bowl.com, which is the USBC site,” Kegebein says. “We’re kicking off a mobile app that you can use to pull up some information on phones. And we’re purchasing iPads that will be stationed at the Oncenter at our hospitality booth for the duration of the tournament as well as at the baggage claim areas at the airport where they’ll be able to access the website for information.” A well-coordinated campaign will entice bowlers to spend their spare time enjoying the Syracuse area, starting with their hotel accom- modations. “They blocked 600 rooms every night for the duration of the tournament,” Kegebein explains. “The suite properties are going like wildfire because they can pack five women into a suite. The women come in teams of five and they want to stay together.
So that’s been very popular. USBC signed contracts with 15 hotels to offer a USBC rate for the duration.” The 236-room Sheraton Syracuse Uni- versity Hotel and Conference Center, 801 University Ave., has rolled out the red carpet with banners and bowling pin décor and spe- cial drink and dining menus. “We have quite a few rooms on the books that represent the USBC,” confides Sheraton general manager David Heymann, who also serves as president of
the Greater Syracuse Hospitality and Tourism Association. “We probably
anticipate a couple of hundred thousand dollars-plus of business in that
time period. That’s kind of a guesstimate, but I think by the time they
kick it off and all the rooms are booked and people start to spend some
money enjoying food and beverage services, it’s going to be well over
$200,000.”
Caz Limo, an event sponsor along with Turning Stone Resort and Casino and 10 other local and national businesses, will keep busy chauffeuring athletes and families in from the airport and the Regional Transportation Center and shuttling them to such local hotspots as Carousel Center and Armory Square while providing day trips to target destinations from Turning Stone Casino, to the Finger Lakes, Skaneateles, Waterloo Premium Outlets and even Niagara Falls. Charters are also being offered to those who want to take a longer road trip. Website links to several Thousand Island attractions will put that area on the radar for some bowlers.
Those who live in Central New York can get in on the fun by going downtown to watch the action as bowlers from all 50 states and several foreign nations throw down. Competitors are expected to include 102-year-old Emma Hendrickson of Morris Plains, N.J., and Floridian Mini Tvaska, extending her record with a 65th tournament appearance. The tourney’s timing fills a gap for sports enthusiasts with the March madness of NCAA basketball just concluded and Crunch hockey sliding into the off-season while Syracuse Chiefs baseball gains steam in providing the pastoral pleasures of America’s national pastime.
For Syracusans who count themselves among the 70 million American who bowl, watching the best female keglers in the nation offers a rare treat. “There’s no charge to enter the venue and see the event,” Cannizzaro says. “Something new that we’re doing this year is a weekly summary, an update of the action from the whole week. We’ve started to do that for championships and it seems to be well-received.” Complete reports on the action will also be posted in the USBC website with stories, photos and video.
Queens for a Day 
The championships will take a brief respite from April 22-27 when a field of 300 competitors, comprising numerous former pro bowlers and the cream of the amateur crop, compete for a $25,000 top prize in the USBC Queens event. “It’s actually a different tournament that will happen during this tournament,” Cannizzaro notes. “It’s the USBC Queens, which is one of the majors. There’s no professional women’s tour any longer, but it’s the same ladies, the top women in the world. There’ll be a senior queen at the same time. The finals will be televised live on ESPN.”
Whether spectators are watching in person or on television, the Oncenter will be unrecognizable as the USBC-led crew has turned the convention and trade show space into an enormous, first-class bowling alley. “It takes a lot to put this together,” Cannizzaro points out. “There are 48 lanes and there’s going to be a vendor area for different shops and a locker room and a squad room where the ladies will assemble prior to competing. There’s going to be office space and a big check-in area so they can get their paperwork taken care of, so it should be a pretty nice venue.”
The alleys will be dismantled soon after the women bowlers depart, leaving Central New York with fond memories, an economic shot in the arm and long-term benefits to local organizations that help those in need. In addition to a local bowling event being planned to benefit local charities Wednesday, April 13 from 7 to 10 p.m.; tickets cost $75, the quality hardwood used in lane construction—enough to construct at least five three-bedroom houses—may stay in Syracuse for use by Habitat for Humanity.
“We did that last year in El Paso with the women’s championships,” Cannizzaro says. “That’s our hope that somehow the materials can be used to benefit the local community so that the event isn’t just over when it’s over, but it kind of lives on in the area, so the impact is more than just a few months of people coming to town and a few million dollars economic impact, but it can last that way as well.”
The invasion of distaff bowlers comes 12 years after a USBC open event that hit town for nearly six months in 1999. Open events are coed, although it’s mostly men who compete in them. A committee of Syracuse business and civic leaders made a successful bid for the women’s tourney with a presentation in 2006.
“We
went to their headquarters in Milwaukee,” Kegebein recalls. “We
presented along with three other cities: Albuquerque, El Paso and Baton
Rouge. We took a full team out there and did our presentation. We talked
about all the different components of the bid and the fact that they
would be it in town. They would have our undivided attention. This is
the first time they would be in a center. The women have always used
lanes. This was a new concept for them that they would be in a center.”
While the community will be consumed with making this event a success for all concerned, planners will be keeping one eye on the future. “There’s opportunities for us down the road to bid on their business again,” Heymann acknowledges, “so it’s critically important to service them and take care of them so they feel good about the city of Syracuse.”
As the event rolls on, there can be no letdown as new athletes, representing 6,000 teams, arrive every few days. “Our main role for this tournament is hospitality, welcoming our visitors,” Kegebein explains, “working with the hotels and the attractions to make sure that from the time the visitors hear about coming to Syracuse to the time they go home their experience here is an awesome experience that will allow them to go home having great thoughts of Syracuse and hopefully tell more people so we continue to get more visitors to the area.”
Our very own alley cat, Kevin Corbett, will be your man on the scene for the duration of the U.S. Bowling Congress Women’s Championships, rooting out and writing stories about some of the more compelling contestants, as well as providing relevant updates to the competition. Be sure to look for his regular reportage in upcoming editions of The New Times
