Stephen Meakin's Christmas bonus came more than a month early and it was the perfect gift, a rarity he will likely cherish the rest of his life.
Not just once, but twice in consecutive games, the 23-year-old Meakin achieved 10-pin bowling perfection during Wednesday evening league play Nov. 16 at Strike Zone Bowling Centre, the city's 10-pin alley.
Meakin rolled 24 consecutive strikes, and when he saw that last pin fall he knew he'd written a new chapter in Prince George sports history.
"It's definitely something that's not normally done, getting two in a row is a big deal," said Meakin. "You get the first one and mentally you're so in the moment, the pressure of having so many (strikes) in a row gets to you and you usually blow it. So to be able to ride it for a whole other game is like a whole new level. Honestly, I was so nervous, I was shaking so bad and it was a huge relief when it was all over."
To get to 300 in a game, bowlers have to clear all their pins in the first nine frames, then have three balls in the 10th frame to try for three more strikes. For Meakin, trying to complete his second perfect game, that 10th frame was a real pressure-cooker.
"You get the first one and you turn around and everyone's cheering you and you have half the bowling alley staring at you," he said. "In this day and age, everyone's got phones so everyone's videoing you and you get extra nervous.
"But it was just one shot at a time, like I've been practicing for the last four years. That 10th frame, I threw two bad balls back to back, it was just luck. Bowling is 90 per cent skill and 10 per cent luck and I had luck on my side."
In the second perfect game, the right-handed Meakin said he made four Brooklyn strikes, in which his ball went to the left of the head pin instead of the usual 1-3 pocket he aims at to the right. That lowers the chances of all 10 pins going down. Two of those Brooklyns were the last two balls he let go. But it didn't matter, all the pins fell.
"I throw a hook ball, so the idea is you feed it out and it hooks back, but I threw the last two pretty much in the middle," he said. "I thought it was all over."
Meakin says he had a 12-strike game in open play exactly a year before his two perfect games but for it to count it has to happen in a league game. In the first week of league play this year he had to settle for a 298 score when he missed his last strike.
A perfect game becomes more difficult to achieve in league play because each bowler has to wait for the other team members to throw. League players also bowl on two different lanes, which behave differently because of the distribution of oil used to enhance the sliding action of each thrown ball.
"Two perfect games back-to-back in the same set, that's even hard for the pros to do - it's quite remarkable," said Strike Zone owner Peter Minck. "He's got his game now where he knows what he's doing."
Meakin, an avid drag racer, is a communications technologist for CP Communications, where he works on satellite equipment and radios.
Now in his fourth season as a league player, Meakin bowls in three different leagues. On Wednesday nights he's part of a family team with his mom, Karen Meakin; grandfather, Pat Wilkinson; cousin, Erin Wilkinson; and his girlfriend. Angelina Melny, who was sick and missed seeing his perfect games. Having his family by his side that night helped him relax between shots and cast aside his doubts and Meakin said that probably helped get him through his pressure-packed situation.
"You sit for a couple minutes between each shot and then you're thinking about it," said Meakin, who started playing in youth bowling leagues when he was eight. "That night I was walking around lots and talking to my old teammates so I kind of stayed out of the moment."
Before Meakin got rolling on his two perfect games, Alan Martin of Prince George was the only other shooter to bowl a perfect game at Strike Zone when he hit the magic-300 mark in a Wednesday Morning Coffee League game in September 2012.
The U.S. Bowling Congress record for consecutive strikes in 47, set in 2010 by Pennsylvania native Tommy Gillick.
Meakin enters tournaments in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver and is thinking about entering the Canadian team trials. He doesn't take part in the provincial championships because Strike Zone is no longer a sanctioned alley, lacking a sufficient number of competitive bowlers to keep the sanctioning the alley once had.
For each of his perfect games, Meakin will receive a $300 prize from Strike Zone. That $600 will come in handy if he decides to add to his collection of 12 bowling balls, which cost more than $300 each.
