Edmonton hosts 2025 national lawn bowling championships this week

Lawn bowlers from across Canada will be in Edmonton to compete in the championships this week. Playoff rounds begin Friday.

The lawn and winding road to the national bowls championship peaks this week on the green of a city club.

Edmonton’s Commonwealth Lawn Bowling Club is hosting this year’s Canadian Lawn Bowling Championships, which started Tuesday and are slated to run through Saturday.

Male and female athletes representing eight provinces, including a combined Alberta/Quebec team on top of an all-Alberta squad, are competing in four disciplines — singles, pairs, triples and fours — for national gold.

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The host committee for the 2025 championships includes representatives from all four local clubs: the aforementioned Commonwealth, the Royal Lawn Bowling Club, the Highlands Lawn Bowling Club and the wintertime Edmonton Indoor Lawn Bowling Club.

Modern lawn bowling, also known as bowls, dates back to 13th century England and is played on a smooth grass surface called a green using hard resin balls.

The object of the game is for one side to roll the balls (a.k.a. bowls) closer to the target — a small white ball called a jack — than their opponents. Players from each team take turns rolling their bowls down the green toward the jack until all the bowls have been played.

John Pater, co-chair of the 2025 championships host committee and vice-president of the Commonwealth club, calls lawn bowling “curling on grass” with a lot of the same rules as curling."

“You’ve got players that are lead, second, third, skip,” he told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday. “You’ve got a bowl that actually curls, just like a curling rock does.”

Pater said Alberta has some of the best lawn bowlers in Canada and is “quite competitive” at nationals.

“We have players who kind of routinely make it to the national championships and often finish in the medals, in the gold, silver or bronze,” he said.

At last year’s championships in Milton, Ont., Alberta sides took gold in women’s pairs and triples and in men’s fours and triples.

The local outdoor lawn bowling season runs from Victoria Day to mid-September.

The Royal and Highlands clubs have a long history in the city, with each dating back more than a century. Defunct historic city clubs include the Alberta Avenue, Canadian Legion, Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, Eastwood, Edmonton, Garneau, Patricia, Strathcona, University and Westlawn.

The Commonwealth club, which last week also hosted the national youth and junior championships, was established in 1978. Its four-green venue, located at Coronation Park just east of 142 Street near the Telus World of Science, was built for that year’s Commonwealth Games held in the city.

Ottawa hosted the para lawn bowling championships early this month.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Cameron Wiebe