SLIDESHOW, CLICK ON PHOTO FOR MORE

The South King County Wii Bowling League held its annual tournament at Tukwila Community Center on Wednesday, March14 to wrap up fall-winter league play. Over 80 seniors, a male/female mix, from 14 teams in nine cities, including Burien, SeaTac, Des Moines, and Tukwila participated, utilizing several TV screens, and one enormous inflatable movie screen with projected images.

Wii Bowling is a virtual Nintendo game launched in 2006 and instead of a bowling ball, bowlers flick a video game console in their hand resembling a TV channel changer while staring at a screen with a projected image of a bowling lane with pins. Humanlike cartoon figures mimic the action of the bowler.

Like the actual sport, some Wii teams in this tournament wore bowling shirts, and responded with similar gestures as they would while attempting to knock down real pins. When some got a strike, they jumped with joy and raise their arms up in victory. If they got into the gutter, then let's just say their grimace was actual, not virtual. One player staring at his 7-10 split actually wiped the sweat from his forehead with a hanky just like they do on real-live TV bowling tournaments. He only nailed the 10-pin.

It looks easy, but, like they say, it's a game of inches, and control is the key.

Three divisions, A,B, and C, competed, with A being the highest scorers. Each team bowled three games.

It broke down like this, in random order:

Division A

Wii Kickin - Kent-First place
Wii Be Bowling - Bonney Lake
Senior Stars - Auburn
Sea Tac Flyers - Sea Tac

Division B

Pin Pals - Kent-First place
Hit Or Miss - Bonney Lake
Alley Cats - Enumclaw
Rowdy Express - Burien
Pin Droppers - Maple Valley

Division C

Senior Strikers - Auburn
Wii Sparklers - Des Moines - First Place
Seniors On Strike - Bonney Lake
Gutter Gals - Tukwila
Split Happens - Tukwilla