Was at the finals today of the Regional in Struthers Ohio at beautiful Holiday Bowl. Pattern was 52 feet of Badger. #2 seed JR Redmond struck out in the 10th of the 12th and final game of match play against #1 seed EJ Tackett to force EJ to double and get good count to win (coming into the game, the top 4 bowlers after 8 games of qualifying and 11 games of match play were within 23 pins...EJ was leading Redmond by 6 pins, Kyle Mayberry by 15, and Craig Nidiffer by 23 pins). EJ threw a great first shot but left a swishing 7 giving the win to JR. JR used a Pearl Paradox for the last half or more of match play today and EJ mainly used a Trident.

Notes from what I saw:
Absolutely NOBODY throwing Brunswick poured stuff outside of Smallwood who did not qualify for Sunday. On Sunday, there was ZERO Brunswick poured stuff in the house. NONE. Very surprised honestly.

On Sunday, out of the 12 bowlers, Tom Sorce was using Storm, Kelly Jordan was using 900 Global, Craig Nidiffer is a free agent and used mostly a solid Impulse before momentarily switching to an Octane Carbon before using an original Dare Devil for the last 6+ games.

Everyone else was a Motiv staffer or a EBI 4 brand staffer. Motiv and EBI had a great showing today. 

Interesting about the Big B no shows. I thought Big B was doing pretty good over all.

I'm not, I haven't seen a Brunswick ball in the Chicagoland area in almost 2 years outside of sitting on a shelf in a pro shop.

Quote from: JamminJD on May 14, 2017, 07:37:57 PM

Interesting about the Big B no shows. I thought Big B was doing pretty good over all.

I'm not, I haven't seen a Brunswick ball in the Chicagoland area in almost 2 years outside of sitting on a shelf in a pro shop.

You'd think with rash being in Aurora there would be, but other than some staffers I know, no one is touching Brunswick. Some Radical, and DV8 has fallen off the map.

On Thursday Smallwood bowled in a Charity deal with his PBA Philadelphia Hitmen Team (Russell, Wodka, Loschetter) against some local folk in 2 different sessions on the house shot. Solid Rack Attack was the ball of choice and he had a great look.

Once he got on Badger, nothing he had faced up well enough for that pattern...my first thought was maybe it was him because of his unique delivery, but when I was watching other folks bowl, there just wasn't anything Big B poured....

Years ago, Big B was known for EARLY roll...and on a 52 foot pattern, you would think there would be some guys looking for the early roll stuff, especially on the fresh.

Why would you want early roll on 52 feet? You have eight feet of dry for the ball to change direction. I want something very fast response.

I was following Wodka and in game 4 he ran into Ronnie Russell. Wodka was tossing the Impulse Solid and Ronnie started the day with the original solid Tyrant and had just gone 250+ in game 3 and was leading at the time. He lost 17-18 (worst pair in the house) and in about the 8th frame switched to the Gauntlet. Found the last few and used that the next few games. Wodka eventually switched in the 10th to a Phenom Pearl. Unfortunately, Wodka struggled the next few games with ball reaction.

Last great Brunswick piece was the Vapor Zone.  Nothing since then has had wide popularity.  Not saying they haven't had some decent stuff, but other companies have come up with way more successes

Last great Brunswick piece was the Vapor Zone.  Nothing since then has had wide popularity.  Not saying they haven't had some decent stuff, but other companies have come up with way more successes

I agree, Vapor Zone, Raging Red Fuze, Absolute Inferno were incredibly impactful balls that were seemingly in everyones hands. Now? crickets........

There were a lot of the Masterminds(and that series) being used in this area when they were in production. But otherwise, not a lot of Big B stuff.

Radical and DV8 seem to be fairing better than Brunswick, but Storm, Ebonite and Motiv rule the lanes.

The Masterminds were popular around here too. I loved my OG MM, personally. The rest were turds.

The only other "popular" ball from the Big B fam was the Radical score, entirely because of that promo for 300s.  Popular in this case is in comparison to other Brunswicks. It was still nowhere near most releases from storm and hammer.