North Harbour’s new format
Bowls North Harbour will introduce next season its own version of the Bowls Premier League.
Other sports have a shorter version of their traditional game and Bowls North Harbour president Graham Dorreen says now is a good time for local bowling clubs to jump on board.
‘‘Bowls has not had anything quite like this at club level and given the time constraints of people these days, a short sharp, vibrant, exciting format is what bowls needs,’’ Dorreen says.
New Zealand hosted the fifth edition of the televised BPL at the North Shore Events Centre and Sunnybrae Bowling Club in February.
The BPL, under the name of Australian Premier League, was first played across the Tasman in 2013, and was billed at the time as bringing the sport into the 21st century.
The North Harbour version will take place on consecutive Thursdays between March 22 and April 12 2018, each of the 26 clubs in the Harbour centre will be split into four zones playing in a twilight competition on the same lines as the BPL.
Each game has two games of five ends, including one power play end that attracts double points. There is a oneend tiebreaker, if needed, and rolling substitutions among each team’s three players. The competition is open to men and women and each game takes around 90 minutes to play.
Each club in the qualifying zones will host one of the rounds.
Top qualifiers will then go on to a finals day in late April.