The usual Buffalo area stop on the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour will be skipped next year.

A PBA Tour tournament has been held here the last four seasons at AMF Thruway Lanes in Cheektowaga, but a major change in how the tour will be presented next season preempted the scheduled Buffalo stop.

“We had a contract for next season, but we agreed to take the year off because of the changes the PBA was making,” said Mary Chase, general manager of AMF Thruway. “The tour will be back here the next year [2010-11].”

The PBA has created the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour World Series of Bowling to be held in August and will include seven PBA Tour events, the PBA Women’s Series presented by the USBC and a revamped PBA Senior Tour championship.

Basically, the PBA will be videotaping half a season’s worth of tournaments in Michigan over five weeks for television showing later. Bowlers will gather in the Detroit area for all of August and part of September and compete in six exempt PBA tournaments and one open-field major event, the PBA World Championship.

Taped finals of the tournaments will be shown on ESPN each Sunday in what has traditionally been the first half of the PBA Tour season—mid-October to early December.

The first half will conclude with the live finals of the PBA World Championship on Dec. 13, featuring the four finalists determined in early September at the World Series.

The January-April second half of the PBA Tour season will be similar to the current tour makeup, featuring live Sunday telecasts.

Six of the seven Women’s Series events for 2009-2010 also will take place at the World Series, including a newly created open-field PBA Women’s Series World Championship.

Mike Pettinella of Batavia, a bowling columnist who has been involved in various levels of bowling for 35 years, recently was elected president of the new Empire State Bowling Association.

The Empire State association was formed during a meeting of United States Bowling Congress delegates on May 30 in Utica. It replaces the New York State USBC Association, which had its charter revoked by the USBC after former manager Stephen Donahue of Weedsport embezzled approximately $274,000 from the NYSBA.

“We are committed to turning the page and moving forward to promote the sport of bowling with honesty and integrity for all bowlers in New York State,” Pettinella said.

“We finally have the outcome bowlers in New York deserve,” USBC Chief Operating Officer Kevin Dornberger said. “The Empire State Bowling Association has the ability to be a model for the nation led by a group of volunteers committed to fiscal responsibility and partnering with USBC to provide quality service for members.”

The Empire State’s board of directors will include two members each from 10 jurisdictions statewide. Two of the districts are in Western New York, one for Erie County and the other outside Erie County. Fran Bax of Niagara Falls and Robert Kaverman of Jamestown are directors for Jurisdiction 1 and Joseph Fischer of Cheektowaga and Nancy Walczyk of Boston are the directors from Jurisdiction 2. Walczyk also is the manager of the New York State Women’s USBC Association and former president of the Greater Buffalo USBC Association.

The new Empire State Association will represent approximately 80,000 members and is separate from the New York State USBC Women’s Bowling Association and the New York State USBC Youth Association.

Nick Morrissey, who helped West Seneca East to the New York State Public High Schools school team championships, among other accomplishments, received the 21st annual $1,000 scholarship award from the Bowling Proprietors Association of Western New York. Morrissey and more than 80 youth bowlers were honored at the association’s 55th annual Championship Awards Dinner Wednesday night at Salvatore’s Italian Gardens. Morrissey will attend Canisius College in the fall.

The BPAWNY awarded another $4,500 in scholarships to winners of the organization’s three tournaments. Recipients of $500 awards were: Melissa Vetrano (Transit Lanes), David Zajac (Rapids Lanes), Elizabeth McLean (Island Lanes), James Pendolino (Transit), Alex Petrie (Transit), Ashley Dzik (Tonawanda Bowling Center), Josh Stanbro (Springville Lanes), Ted Chojecki (Thruway Lanes). Aaron Broardt (Transit) and Henry Wesolowski (Tonawanda) received $250 scholarships each.