what is duck pin?

They are smaller bowling pins, short and squaty. I believe there are only 9 on the lane and you play with a small wooden ball. There were some vids on youtube.

Duckpin is still 10 pins, just shorter and fatter but the ball isn't wood anymore, but they are small. I think its scoring is similar to candlepin. With both candlepin and duckpin, hooking isn't really the way to go, straight and hard are. AMF actually owns a few duck pin centers around me. One might be merging into the nearest 10 pin center and there is already one house set up like that. Its not on separate floors either. There are also several independent duckpin houses around. I've went maybe twice and the second time a few of us adults, it was a party for a nephew, threw a few and would hook the lane.

I grew up in Mass and we had a Candelpin Bowling alley in my town. We used to go a few times a year, normally for a birthday party or similar event. Its tough. Bowling a 100 in Candlepins was an accomplishment. They tore down the alley when I was in High School so the only bowling available was the next town over where they had "Big Ball Bowling."

I never watched it much, but they used to have televised Candlepin Bowling show on a local chanel called "Candlepins for Cash." They would bring on a few local bowlers to try their luck on the Candlepin lane to earn cash based on their score. If I recall correctly, they used to have a bonus pin that was painted red that lead to extra cash if you knocked it down.

Of course, when I went "big ball bowling" the first time, I had no clue what I was doing. luckily we had someone in the group who bowled 10-pin so he knew all the differences. I grabbed the ball with my thumb and first two fingers in a totally incorrect grip and bowled away. My first night with the Big Ball, I rolled a 179 with a bad grip. I have never approached that number again since. That incorect grip lead to me flipping my wrist around on the transition from backward swing to forward swing and I would end up releasing the ball with my hand on top of the ball with a wrist flick. The ball would almost float down the lane like a knuckle ball with some backspin on it and then catch the lane with some left to right movement (from a right hand release). Very poor technique, but it was consistant.