[su_heading size=”24″ margin=”10″]Short Mat Bowling at Oak Bay[/su_heading]

Updated January 29, 2023

This video clip shows 11 thrilling seconds of short mat play at our club! 🙂

For those who are familiar with the game at Oak Bay LBC, the usual links to calendar, bookings, etc can be found on the Short Mat Calendar. Those interested just in leagues or tournaments can refer to the  Short Mat Leagues and Short Mat Tournaments webpages.

For those new to the game at our club, check out our Newcomers Invitation page. 

The annual short mat season is comprised of two sessions: the fall session lasts about 11 weeks from October to December; the 13-week winter session runs from January to April. A typical session consists of about 300 scheduled games.

All members of the club, except social members, are entitled to play.

Normally, if you wish to play in one of the competitive leagues which run most sessions, you need to complete the Short Mat League Entry form at the start of the session. 

If you intend to play in daily draw games ONLY,  you just book yourself into the daily draw game(s) of your choice. See “Booking Daily Draw Games” below.

We have two short mat rinks that can accommodate no more than twelve players at one time, so all games during the session have to be scheduled. The mat is open for play 24 hours a day, but the 12-hour booking period starts at 9:00 a.m. and is divided into six two-hour time slots for each rink, finishing at 9:00 p.m. If you wish to play outside those times, you can, but there is no reservation system for that.

More information about how we organize short mat games appears below.

Click on the headings below to open up the details. Any images will expand when you click on them. Click again to close the detail.

[su_spoiler title=” Games Format” style=”fancy” icon=”chevron-circle”]

We play the short mat game according to the CSMBA Rules supplemented by our own Local Short Mat Rules.

We play singles, pairs and triples short mat games, with players having four, four and three bowls each respectively. A game is typically 18 ends for singles, 14 ends for pairs and triples. A singles game takes about 75 minutes, pairs about 100 minutes and triples almost two hours.

We have two pairs leagues and either one or two singles leagues each regular season: A Pairs, B Pairs, C Singles and D Singles. The leagues are “round-robin,” meaning every player in the league is scheduled to play every other player once during the season. There is a limit of 12 entrants per league, which requires 66 games to complete a round robin. A and C are considered the more competitive leagues.

One or more daily draw games are scheduled every day—at different times, depending on the day of the week. The short mat daily draws are similar to the lawn bowling daily draws of the summer season, except that no more than twelve players can play at the same time. Only the times of the daily draw games are scheduled; players book themselves into whichever games suit them.  Every Wednesday there is a Women’s only draw session; the Men’s draw is on Thursdays.  The list of players in each daily draw is available by clicking on the event time in the online Short Mat Calendar.

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[su_spoiler title=”Short Mat Registration” style=”fancy” icon=”chevron-circle”]

If you wish to play in the league, you register for each three-month short mat session by completing the online Short Mat League Entry form.  

If you intend to play in Daily Draw games only, you just reserve a place in the Daily Draw game(s) of your choice by selecting it from the online Short Mat Calendar. Click on the event in the calendar that you are interested in joining. The RSVP interface is self-explanatory, needing you to enter name, e-mail address and RSVP selection. Once that is done, click the Join button and you’re in!

Any problems phone Andrew Harley at 250 592 8762 or 250 634 3719.

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[su_spoiler title=”Short Mat Schedule” style=”fancy” icon=”chevron-circle”]

The Short Mat Schedule is published online at the start of each session. It shows every scheduled league game and the daily casual Daily Draw games for the 50-60 players who usually register for short mat.

Players consult the short mat schedule to: verify when they are scheduled to play a league game; see when Daily Draw games are scheduled; and to find vacant spots for practice. 

As soon as the schedule is published, you will be able to book a place in Daily Draw games to complete your personal short mat schedule for the session. You can also book your own private games in vacant slots.

The online schedule is kept up-to-date with any changes throughout the session.

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[su_spoiler title= “Daily Draw Schedule” style=”fancy” icon=”chevron-circle”]

There will be at least one casual daily draw game every day at 10:00 a.m or 1:00 p.m., unless preempted by a tournament. The formats of the games vary depending on the number of players.

The following times have been chosen on the basis of popularity over the past few sessions.

Here is the normal weekly schedule for daily draw games for both the winter and fall sessions. It is possible that these games might  be cancelled—if they conflict with a tournament and league game, for example. The online calendar will always have the up-to-date schedule.

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Schedule of Daily Draws 

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[su_spoiler title=”Booking Daily Draw Games” style=”fancy” icon=”chevron-circle”]

We use the RSVP system for booking places in the Daily Draw. RSVP allows you to make a booking by clicking on the calendar entry for the game you want.

When you wish to book yourself into a casual daily draw game (which is the indoor equivalent of the summertime Open Draw), you first consult the online short mat calendar to see the times when the Daily Draws are scheduled.

Click on the game you want to play in. A pop-up window will appear that instructs you to click on the title of the window.

A screen will appear for your game, confirming the date and time and giving you the opportunity to reserve a place or cancel a previous booking. You can also see who else has already booked in this game. Your own booking would be immediately added to the list of players.

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[su_spoiler title=”Short Mat Tournaments” style=”fancy” icon=”chevron-circle”]

We usually plan to hold club tournaments on two of the weekends in both the fall and the winter sessions. We also stage a multi-day interclub invitational tournament at least once a year. For tournaments, we usually lay down a third mat in Carnarvon House to accommodate more players. The format of each club tournament is decided when enrollments close, but it is typically a one-day pairs or a triples tournament, depending on the number of entrants. We have also played team cutthroat tournaments in the recent past. 

A typical one-day triples tournament has a schedule such as this. Pairs tournaments are very similar.

In a short mat cutthroat tournament, players are divided into three-person teams that compete against each other. You will play three or four 40-minute games over two days. With the minimum 12 players, you play three of your games against members of two other teams and one game where two people on one team compete against a single player from another team. With 18 players, you play against members of other teams in every one of your games.

Watch for a website announcement and register early! These tournaments have been known to fill up within 24 hours.

The Lakehill Lawn Bowling Club holds a multi-club short mat tournament every February. Oak Bay is usually allowed to enter two teams. If more than two Oak Bay teams want to enter, we stage a playoff to decide who goes.

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[su_spoiler title=”Shortmat Scorecards” style=”fancy” icon=”chevron-circle”]

Here are various short mat scorecards in the form of an Excel workbook. Each tab shows a different format, with three scorecards per page. You can choose whichever format you like and print off the page. (You need to download this workbook to your own computer, if you wish to make any changes.)

This is the scorecard, in PDF format, that we are currently using for short mat tournaments. [/su_spoiler]