Saturday, June 15, 2013

Wannabe Playing SkeeBall!!

When I first ‘made it’ in the city, one of the first things I needed to get done was to join with the ‘Queen Beans’, go to different events, dine at the best restaurants in Boston and join in every social group possible. So back in July of 2011, when I was sitting on the Red Line to work, I picked up a Boston Metro with the front page article of a SkeeBall machine and the title “Skee-Ball: Hub Letting The Good Times Roll” and a blurb about a free ‘skee’ event to be held at The Greatest Bar. I thought to myself, “cool! This would be great to join!”

As I made my way up to the 3rd floor of The Greatest Bar, I saw about 40 people had showed up to see what this SkeeBall League was all about. The SkeeBall machines were kiddie cornered in a nook and the concept of the game looked very much like the days of softball pitching, roll the ball down the middle of the lane and hit one of the targets from 10, 20, 30, 40 , 50 and two 100’s in the corners…easy enough. As I started to attempt to show off my (non)SkeeBall skills, I saw a face I very much recognized; Alexis, a high school classmate. She had told me the story about how her and her husband Duke originally played on a SkeeBall League in North Carolina and wanted to bring the league to Boston.


After a few more rounds of trying to get a score above 200, I was hooked and wanted to be a part of the first SkeeBall League in Boston- only problem was, I didn’t have a team of 3 to join. I had mentioned to Alexis that I was interested in joining the league but didn’t have anyone to join a team with- that’s where the two best SkeeMates came in to play. Alexis had set me up with a great couple, Zach & Heather to be my teammates- we had connected immediately.



Well, cut to this past Thursday, countless PBRs, trophies & hundos later, “Skeeson 6” had finally gotten underway. Over the last 6 Skeesons, there have been many changes; a lot of the original teams from Skeeson 1 are no longer around, faces change just about every season, team names are also different each time and the original “SkeeBall Bartender”, Billy is no longer around to hand me my Bud Light Limes (which never tasted the same since he left). But there are three things that haven’t changed: Zach, Heather and I are still one awesome team, we always have the best team names (The QuinChelSkees!), and I still have yet to average a 300 in one game.

Starting off in week 1 of a new skeeson, it’s always fun to see some familiar faces and new ones and scope out who’s the ‘team to beat’. Every skeeson, my teammates and I are always up for our own personal challenge of beating our previous averages and hope to score above a 900…something that the top teams would call ‘a very bad evening’ and something we would call ‘epic, epicness’! This season should be one of the more interesting seasons; the two top teams of the past 5 skeesons are no longer and there are few rooskies (newbies), to be on the lookout for.

As for me, well, I have 3 goals for the skeeson:
1.   Average 300 in at least one game
2.   Add another trophy to my collection
3.   Try and create cool skee name: JanelleSkee, Nellskee or 
     Suckley-Skee!…


Actually, I think Janelle works just fine.


Here we go-skee!!                        Check out SkeeBoston!!  
     

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