How I do not miss this crap...my home house had this down for a while. Smartly, the new owners said enough is enough and they went to synthetic overlay last year. The shield was a joke from the beginning IMO. The last year of the shield, during roll-offs, for the only decent league in the house, the left lane of the roll-off pair developed a bubble in the process of bowling. Nothing like seeing the shield get lifted and then tossed in the air like you would a sheet before putting the sheet on your bed, so the roll-off could finish. Brutally bad idea for center owners trying to save a buck.
Remember, you and your bowlers get what you pay for...good or bad.
Ah, someone who knows our pain lol. Yeah, we see the "bubble removal" technique occasionally. Our stuff is old enough that it has tears and cuts in it. Some places are so bad that they had to patch it, meaning they cut out the damaged section, put a larger section over the hole and used clear packing tape to anchor it down. So there's a seam all around it, and a depression in the middle of it. One lane has that from the 15 board to the 32 board at the first set of dots, and another section at about 35 feet from 8-13. Near impossible to avoid.
However, it was pretty promising when it came out, and as it was billed as a 7 year surface, a lot of center owners (including our own) breathed a sigh of relief. Obviously though pretty soon they figured out it was junk, and now isn't even in production for our owner to replace certain lanes that are torn up. He had another center that went south on him and that's kept him from being able to upgrade this center. Next year though definitely, he's got it all set up, just doesn't have time before leagues start this summer to change it all, because if you notice in the video, there's above ground ball returns all the way to the return. Everything from the seating area through the decks is getting replaced. Pinsetters will stay, but they have to do some concrete sawing to drop the ball returns down. Lol I like starting straight up 10 with a Brutal Nightmare and playing 5th arrow with a Misfit by the end of the night because of how fast it burns up . . that's pretty awesome.