The month of January means it's tournament time again. Two major meets were held in November. They were the St. Paul Women's City meet and the Women's tourney at Garden Center Lanes in Alexandria. The 2007 Minnesota State Women's tourney began last weekend at Brainerd and Baxter and runs through May 6. The 68th annual Garden Center Tourney, open to men and women, also began last weekend and runs through May 20.    

                                                                                                                        The USBC Men's State Open meet, to be held at two houses in Winona, opens Feb. 3 and runs through May 6. The St. Paul USBC Open Championships opens on Feb 3rd and runs through Mar. 25th at Wells Lanes in South St. Paul.  It will be the 85th Men's State Tourney and the 82nd St. Pul City meet.

        The St. Paul Women's 600 Club meet is slated for Saturday, Feb. 3 at White Bear Bowl.  The youth get into the act the same weekend with the St. Paul Jr. match games taking place at Saxon Lanes in Little Canada on Sun. Feb. 4.

         Not to be outdone by the 600 club, the St. Paul 500 Club tourney will be held Feb 10th at Minnehaha Lanes and the Minneapolis 600 Club tourney is scheduled for Feb. 3rd at Sundance Golf and Bowl in Maple Grove.

    

         The 14th annual Mama & Papa Vitale's Youth Scholarship tournament will be held on three weekends starting Feb. 10th through Feb. 25th at Saxon Lanes.  It is open to all youth in the state.

         Also scheduled for Saxon Lanes in Little Canada is the St. Paul Senior Mixed tournament.  It will be two weekends, March 24th and April 1st.  The annual Minnesota State Mixed tournament will be held April 14th to May 13th at River City Lanes in Monticello.

         The St. Paul and Minneapolis 700 Clubs will hold their meets simutanously starting April 30th and running nightly (no weekend) through May 11th.  The St. Paul tourney is slated for Maplewood Bowl and the Mill City meet will be held at Lyn-Del Lanes in Bloomington.

OTHER NOTES:

         The Minneapolis Youth Awards dinner will be held on Monday Jan. 29th at Fuddrucker's in St. Louis Park.  The Youth All City teams and tournament winners will be announced and there will be a silent auction and raffles.

         Among those to be honored are:  Youth Leader of the Year - Carl Rottman; Coach of the Year - Willie Taylor Jr.; Volunteer of the Year - Jill Walker-Markie; and Proprietor of the Year - Greg Bender of New Hope Bowl.

         There are two weekends remaining in the 25th annual  St. Paul Mixed tournament at Midway Pro Bowl.  The meet ends the weekend of Feb. 4th.  The team event, two men and two women, is led by the Poelzer-Larson foursome with a scratch score of 2,735.

         The tandem of Karen Thomley and Jim Wandmacher is leading doubles with a score of 1,470.  Clark Poelzer leads men's singles with a scratch 805 series and Thomley leads women's singles with a 739 score.  Wandmacher leads men's all events (6 games) with a 1,569 and Nicki Donlon leads women's all events at 1,438.