I'd like to share a rather unique event that happened during my team squad last night.

During the early frames of game 3, the Oncenter was forced to evacuate due to a fire alarm. We were outside the Oncenter for about 45 minutes, then returned back. Once settled back in, we waited a bit more for the scorers to write down everyones spares that were still up. Once that was done, we got ten minutes to warm up, then continue the game. Unfortunately, during the fire alarm, the air conditioner stopped running, making the Oncenter warmer and much more humid.

Overall, I think the circumstance was handled as best it could. But there were some unfortunate side effects of this (shoes tracked in water and dirt from outside, it got humid in the center, and my hand swelled up). Also, our 7pm squad started about 45 minutes late. The 10:45pm S/D squad started around 12:30 am

What do you guys think about this circumstance?

Nothing you can do sometimes. Sounds like they handled it properly

My buddy shot 795 in singles on that late late squad, they started practice at 1am and got done just before 5am
those guys were none to happy about it, but what are you going to do, just have to go with it

The worst I remember was when the tournament was in Albuquerque the first time. We got into town and there had been a wildfire that had knocked out the power to the convention center.

We didn't bowl until the next day and was not effected by this but I seems like a couple of squads couldn't bowl till the power was fixed.

I remember way back when both team squads were in the evening with the second shift bowling on the burn. The second shift was what most teams wanted as the lanes had started to open up some. But the squad wasn't scheduled to start until 10:30 local time.

Those squads never got started on time and one year in Reno we were 90 minutes late getting started and finished up about 3:30 in morning. Our body clocks said it was 5:30 AM, you felt like a zombie.

With the new squad times and fresh oil the squad times have gotten a lot more consistent in the last decade.

That happened to our teams a couple of times (being delayed).  Worst was when we had to turn around and bowl singles/doubles the next morning.  Body was not ready for that. 

n00dlejester,

Aside from the odd circumstances you faced, did the lanes play as you expected?  More hook?  Less hook?

On a very cool note, USBC actually gave everybody during the fire alarm squad a free entry into the Singles event next year! I honestly didn't expect anything since it was a legitimate alarm that the Syracuse FD had to handle. While there's a lot to bemoan about the USBC, I thought this gesture was incredibly kind and deserves attention.

I was on the same squad.  In addition to the delays you mentioned, the pair of lanes next to us had a ball return breakdown during the warmup after the evacuation.  After working on it for 15 minutes, they moved those bowlers to a pair that only had one team bowling and had finished early.  We were bowling while two workers were laying on the lane trying to fix the problem.