The 1st Times-News Open, the start of a new era of bowling in the Erie area. Dom Colelli was at the helm and entries were taken at the Amity Inn and Dom’s Barber Shop. On the final day for entries, Dom was taking them at St. Joseph’s Community Center at 24th and Sassafras during the 700 Club Jamboree. The tournament started with 84 of the area’s best bowlers.

The winter classic featured 3 8-game qualifying blocks followed by 3 8-game blocks of 2-game matches. The event rotated between Eastland Bowl and Rolling Meadow Lanes for each of the tournaments’ 6 rounds. Butch Snyder tossed out the opening ball at the first shift at 1:30 on Saturday.

Carl Young, substituting for Rusty Argeny, held the lead after the first round with scores of 235-213-237-228-248-250-232-211 for 1,856, a first round 8-game record. Buddy Malone was second with 1,802.

Young followed up his spectacular round 1 performance with an even better performance in round 2. Shooting a round 2 record of 1,875 on scores of 221-242-279-248-229-204-214 and 238 his lead bulged to 394 pins over Marion Bartnik.

Young cooled a bit in round three, 1,699, yet established a record 24-game qualifying total of 5,429, a 226 average. Buddy Malone bounced back to recover second, an amazing 414 pins behind.

Unfortunately for Young qualifying totals were discarded and the finals were conducted under a format whereby points are garnered for each match win and for every 10 pins your games are over 200 (i.e. a 225 game match win would earn 3 points).

Youthful Tom Hickey emerged the leader after round one, his 1,718 block and 5 match wins earned him 18 points. Al Wilson followed with 13 points, Ray Smith 12 and Carl Young 11.

Young surged back with a block of 1,771 and 4 match for 18 points and a 2 round total of 29. Hickey continued to hold the lead with a 1,646 block and 6 more match victories for a total of 30 points.

Hickey managed to pad his lead to 42 to 38 after the day’s 6th game with Young his persuer. Looking to breeze to the title Lakewood Lanes’ Hickey bested Young in game 7 234-226 adding another 2 points to his lead. Young, however, was not done. The crafty veteran began the final game strike, spare, triple before being halted by a solid 10 pin. He finished off the game with the final 6 for 259 while Hickey could manage just 181. This meant 6 points for Young and a deadlock with Hickey.

There was a 2-game rolloff to decide the title. Young could not get on track as Hickey defeated him by 221-183 and 195-171 counts for 4 points and an eventual 50 to 46 margin.

In the end Hickey averaged 210 in the finals to Young’s 211. Hickey was the youngest bowler in the finals at 20 years old. The finals were viewed by some 500-600 fans.