The Church Athletic League was best known for its hockey programs, but in the 1950’s and subsequent decades its softball and bowling programs were also extremely popular among young people in Kingston.

In the early years, the purpose of the Church League was twofold, the CAL “kept young people off the streets,” and it is the reason Harold Harvey, owner of St. Lawrence Construction, founded the league.

It also required every child in the league maintain 80 percent Sunday school attendance, that brought many young people into local churches each week and in many cases, it also brought the parents to church services.

In 1952 the CAL Five Pin Bowling League started with 200 participants, a decade later a 1963 Whig Standard article touted the fact the league had grown to well over 1,000 young bowlers participating.

The hub of five pin bowling for the CAL was Brock Bowling Lanes. Located across Brock Street from the Hotel Dieu Hospital, it was filled with CAL bowlers every Saturday morning. The Plaza Lanes, Princess Bowl, the Bowladrome (located above James Reid Furniture on Princess Street near Sydenham Street) and Maple Leaf Lanes at CFB Kingston also hosted weekly games.

The CAL registration fee for the season was just one dollar, for kids from ages 9 to 18. The weekly cost for two games was 25 cents to 40 cents per week, depending on your age.

Each bowling team representing a church had an adult supervisor on Saturday mornings that also acted as coach, scorer, and advisor. And as the Whig article mentioned, “duties include holding ice cream cones, cokes, potato chips, providing kleenex for leaky noses, and various other services.”

In May 1990, Brock Bowling Lanes closed after a 40 plus year run. It was forced to close after the owner of the building at Brock and Montreal Streets, George Vosper, decided to demolish the building with plans to build a new medical centre.

The Brock Smoke Shop also disappeared along with the Brock Lanes. Mike Picherack had owned the bowling lanes since 1948, and wanted to continue running it, but was forced to terminate the longstanding business that had served the local bowling community so well. Selling off everything and shuttering what was regarded as the best five-pin bowling facility in Eastern Ontario.

A Kingston city bylaw would not allow a new bowling alley downtown.

It left Celebrity SportsWorld and Garrison Lanes at the army base as the only local 5-pin lanes remaining open.

With Brock Lanes gone, in the fall of 1990 the CAL moved to 10 pin bowling, but it only had 40 kids signed up and eventually CAL bowling just faded away.

Gwen Walker from St. John’s Anglican Church in Portsmouth was a tireless volunteer for the Church Athletic League. From the early days in the early the 1950’s and for the decades that followed (over 50 years dedicated to the CAL), Gwen was involved with the CAL bowling program.

It was a different era, but there was a time when Saturday morning CAL 5-pin bowling was something hundreds of kids looked forward to, even if it meant missing part of the Saturday morning cartoons on TV.