The United States Bowling Congress and Storm Products have agreed on a national tournament exclusion rule and ball exchange program for six Storm Products manufactured ball models. The agreement comes after USBC identified the models having a percentage of balls produced below USBC minimum 73D hardness specification.
USBC's investigation showed a percentage of these ball models measured below the USBC-required hardness level of the approval samples submitted by Storm. Storm collaborated with USBC after being notified of this testing.
The affected models include:
- Storm Phaze 4
- Storm Electrify Solid
- Storm Trend 2
- 900 Global Altered Reality
- 900 Global Wolverine
- Roto Grip UFO Alert
Effective March 30, 2022, these balls models are prohibited from use in USBC national tournaments, including, but not limited to, the USBC Masters, U.S. Open, USBC Open Championships, USBC Women's Championships, all PWBA Tour events, USBC Junior Gold and Youth Open Championships, USBC Intercollegiate Championships, USBC Team USA Trials, USBC Senior Masters and USBC Senior Queens.
These ball models remain USBC approved. Each USBC competition, whether tournament or league, has the option to adopt USBC's national tournament rule prohibiting use of these balls or to continue to allow their use.
USBC has shared this national tournament rule with Storm and has Storm's support. Storm will offer owners of the affected balls the option to exchange their balls for a new product. Information about the exchange program will be published later this week on stormbowling.com.
"USBC thanks Storm for the collaboration and for working together on a solution for our members," USBC Executive Director Chad Murphy said. "There is no perfect solution to this type of problem, but this agreement strikes a balance in protecting the integrity of USBC national tournaments, while giving members a choice to do what is best for them locally."
As part of the agreement, Storm Products will discontinue sales of the affected balls. USBC has concluded its investigation and will not be taking action on additional balls related to this production issue.
"Storm appreciates USBC working with us on this agreement, so we can put the issue behind us and focus on our customers," Storm Products President Dave Symes said. "Customer satisfaction has always been our top priority, and we will take care of our customers."
This agreement does not change the status of the Storm Spectre. The Spectre remains unapproved and on USBC's non-conforming ball list.