Wii came, Wii had a Bowling Tournament

The Floating Lush and I held our first ever Wii Bowling Tournament in conjunction with Grandparents day. Grandparents and Grandfriends could come to the library with their grandchildren for a loosely organized competition. A few were familiar with the game and had played it at home, others had never tried the game. Ages ranged from 3 to 70+.

We had 16 people, which is great for a first time. People asked if we would be doing this more often, and one wondered if we had the tournaments weekly. The joy on the faces of the new players who mastered the moves was priceless, and well worth the technical glitches we had setting things up:

Doh, we had two Wiis but only one data projector...how did we think we were going to get the second unit displaying the game?

The television in our lounge is too much of a dinosaur to have the proper data cable connections, we found this out after moving the couch out of the way and dragging the behemoth cart and tv to the meeting room.

My clever idea to use some folding tables as a second screen didn't work out...

We had no snacks for our hard working CC team of The Primrose Reader and The Wii Bowling King, let alone the ace bowling teams.

We gave out certificates as our inaugural prizes:

Highest score (Team)
Highest Score (Individual)
Lowest Score (Team)
Lowest Score (Individual)
Best Stance
Best Celebratory gesture/dance
Loudest screen talker
Funniest Screen wiggler
Most Improved (Team)
Most Improved (individual)
Smooth moves
Best A and B Button Control (new players had alot of trouble holding and releasing both buttons at once, whilst swinging their arms and doing odd things with their legs)
Best New Bowler
Power Ball Toss (We had some really powerful movers and shakers, at both ends of the age range)

We let them pick their certificate, and had multiples of a few of the spicier ones. Nobody wanted the high/low score ones so I think next time we'll go for wacky award names. Silly is good when playing with imaginary balls.