How to social distance with one team per pair

If the teams will still bowl in alternating lane fashion, choose Extended Pair Mode.  If the teams must only bowl on the one lane and not alternate, then use the Extended Pair, Single Lane mode.

Extended Pair Mode Social Distancing Option

This option is for centers where the local or state requirements accommodate leagues, but require fewer people within a distance, requiring a maximum of one team on a pair of lanes. Under this example, teams 1 would bowl on 1-2, team 2 on 3-4, team 3 on 5-6, team 4 on 7-8, team 5 on 9-10, team 6 on 11-12, team 7 on 13-14, team 8 on 15-16, team 9 on 17-18 and team 10 on 19-20.
The advantage of this option is that teams can bowl in tradition alternating lanes.
The disadvantage is that center size can be an issue, requiring the league to be split into multiple shifts.
  1. Open BLS-2021
  2. Open the league
  3. From the main menu, click Setup > League > Lane Assignments.
  4. On the right side of the Lane Assignments grid is a tab labeled Social Distancing. Select Extended Pair.
  5. With the option to Add Lanes, the league will be spread across all lanes available as needed.   When set to Add Shifts, the league will be split into shifts.
  6. While the lane assignment screen will keep the normal lane numbers used, the automatic scoring export as well as recaps will display the pairings appropriately.

Extended Pair, Single Lane

This option is for centers where the local or state requirements accommodate leagues, but require a dark lane be between each team.  Under this example teams 1 would bowl on 1, team 2 on 3, team 3 on 5, team 4 on 7, team 5 on 9, team 6 on 11, team 7 on 13, team 8 on 15, team 9 on 17 and team 10 on 19 (Note – This could also be everyone on the even lanes instead of the odd lanes).  
The advantage of this option is that USBC now has an emergency rule that will allow sanctioned leagues to use this method and BLS-2021 can support this currently and that size of center does not factor in this rule.
The disadvantage is that it requires centers to be large enough to accommodate. BLS also does not support extending the teams across just the odd (or even) lanes, for recaps, lane assignments, standings, and Automatic Scoring purposes. For secretaries using the Standard or Professional edition, you will need to cross out and update the lane numbers bowled. When manually entering scores, however, the matchups would be the same, just the lane numbers would appear off. For Automatic Scoring Systems, while BLS can accommodate instructing the scoring system to not alternate lanes between frames and games, the scoring system would need to be able to manage moving the even lanes to different lanes, such as when a lane breaks down.  Depending on the scoring system, scores may not be able to be returned for all teams, requiring manual score entry.

Configuration Instructions

  1. Open BLS-2021
  2. Open the league
  3. From the main menu, click Setup > League > Lane Assignments.
  4. On the right side of the Lane Assignments grid is a tab labeled Social Distancing. Select Extended Pair, Single Lane.
  5. With the option to Add Lanes, the league will be spread across all lanes available as needed.   When set to Add Shifts, the league will be split into shifts.
  6. While the lane assignment screen will keep the normal lane numbers used, the automatic scoring export as well as recaps will display the pairings appropriately.
Note: After BLS-2021 has been released, we will be looking at adding the option to send teams to the odd lanes or even lanes depending on if the week is an odd or even week number.