Born in Toronto, Jake Hellewell became involved in the bowling industry as a bowler and proprietor by his twentieth birthday. In 1950, while only 17, Jake joined the Toronto City Major League and excelled on the lanes as both a bowler and coach. In 1956-57, for example, Jake won the prestigious City Singles title and, one year later, was poised to win it again, only to be thwarted when Lorne Cunliffe bowled a final game perfect score to beat Jake by a mere nine pins. Jake bowled with the best including a Peoples Credit Jewellers team that consisted of Hall of Famers Eddie Hawkes, Bill Strong, Red McQuaker and Charlie Demelis. This team won the league championship two years out of the three years they were together. Following Jake’s accomplishments in the annual singles tournament, Joe D’Orzaio invited Jake to join Pasquale’s and that team featured more Hall of Famers, including Billy and Jim Hoult, Bert Garside and also Bob Taylor.

Following Pasquale’s and through the effort of Bert Garside and the sponsorship of Double Diamond, an automatic pinsetter company, the concept of a touring all star team was developed to showcase bowling centre openings and participate in out of town competitions. With Jake’s provincial connections, his name was a natural for the team, thus, Hellewell’s All Stars was born. Jake was both coach and manager as on every second weekend for nearly three years, this group barnstormed the province, losing only two matches and opening literally hundreds of new bowling centres. As well, the team, with the core group of Bert Garside, Jim Hoult, Bill Hoult, and George Smith, bowled in the City Major League and while dominating locally also won the interprovincial championship, a competition against other league champions, in their third try.

While Jake firmly established himself as a top bowler, he also built a Hall of Fame career as an administrator. At Long Branch Bowl, Jake became the manager by 1953 and, two years later, at only 22, Jake became the owner of the sixteen lane establishment. Despite his youth, Jake immediately became involved with the executive of the Toronto & District Proprietors Association. This group, also in 1953, joined with the Hamilton Association to form the Bowling Proprietors Association of Ontario (BPAO).

Through the Toronto group, Jake met Jack Fine and Lou Detsky. From the Hamilton side, his colleagues would be Carl Malcolmson and the BPAO’s first president Leon Hudecki. Jim Grant was hired as Executive Director and as you can see, Jake was shaping bowling’s future with the giants of our sport.

In a ten year span to 1963, Jake rose to the volunteer position of Secretary/Treasurer and was also hired by the BPAO in 1962. In this role, he was instrumental in both the formation of the Youth Bowling Council and the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of Canada.

Working with Executive Director, Doug Miller, Jake traveled throughout Eastern Canada, including Newfoundland, signing up proprietors for the new national organization. In addition, Jake sat with Doug Miller and Bert Garside of the Ontario Bowlers Congress to divide the province into zones and their efforts have stood the test of time as the same system has survived over 30 years.

In 1964, Jake was hired by Professional Bowling Limited (PBL) to sell the new innovative string pinsetter across Ontario. The string pinsetter proved to be very efficient and less expensive than the Brunswick and Double Diamond free fall competitors. As well, Jake used his strong relationship with the proprietors association and, Belleville’s Bill Bateman, a BPAO director, was his first sale and other directors such as Chatham’s Alex Feldman soon followed. With these connections, Jake exceeded sales forecasts almost immediately. Unfortunately, however, the supply of pinsetters was unable to keep up with the demand and Jake chose to leave Professional Bowling after staying less than a year.

Moreover, upon moving to PBL, Jake had resigned from the BPAO, but, due to the valuable contribution he was making to the organization, they did not accept it. As such, upon leaving Professional Bowling Limited, Jake returned to the BPAO and continued to build the organization through a newly developed tournament called the Bowling Festival. With only member centres participating, winners received a trip for two to Bermuda. For the BPAO, Jake was also selected to coach at the Ontario and Canadian championships. In 1962, Jake coached the Scarborough mixed team to the national title. This team included several stars of yesterday, including Dylis Turner, who now lives in Winnipeg, the late George Smith and Bert Garside.

Bert Garside used several of the ideas gained from this western trip to lay the foundation for the zone structure of the Ontario Bowlers Congress and both Bob Falconer, another honoree tonight, and Jake would play a role in their development. While Bob Falconer would become the second president of the organization, Jake became its voice to the bowler and the public. Jake was the master of ceremonies at countless provincial banquets, for both the OBC and BPAO and followed in the footsteps of earlier emcees, such as Joe Crysdale, Fred Sgambati and Graham Leggatt at the Open. In addition, due to his popularity and knowledge of the industry, Jake was an annual speaker at the original Builders of the Industry Dinner and spoke for, among others, Bert Garside, Red McQuaker, and Doug Miller.

Jake was part of the group that formed the Master Bowlers Association. In 1964, Jake, along with Doug Miller of the BPAO, sat with Bert Garside and Billy Hoult to lay down the guidelines and Jake was named tournament director, a position he held until 1969. During that time, Joanne, Jake’s wife, made the blue ladies skirts, which were part of the MBAO uniform.

In the summer of 1966, Jake made one of his final moves when, along with Billy Hoult, they formed Hoult-Hellewell Trophies. Jake knew the proprietors and Billy was a household name among the bowlers, the company was an instant hit with the industry. They sponsor in the industry to this day with the Master Bowlers Association and, with the Ontario Bowlers Congress, originally supported a province-wide Mail-O-Graphic Tournament. Hoult-Hellewell continues to sell coast-to-coast through the Youth Bowling Council supplying both Family Twosome and Year-End Awards. Moreover, Hoult-Hellewell have annually supported every convention, both bowlers and proprietors, that is held in this province. In recognition, Hoult-Hellewell has been recognized by the provincial government with several citations, the most recent in 1990.

Jake has a family of nine children and seventeen grandchildren and now lives in Whitby with his wife, Joanne.