Above, Dorothy Harvi, a resident at Bay View Independent Living, in Fall River, gives her best shot during a game of Wii bowling recently. At top, John Correia says he likes the game because he can play it from his wheelchair. Below, the game on the big screen.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

FALL RIVER — Seniors sure get rowdy when they’re bowling.

They send the ball looping in the air before it hits the alley. They drop the ball on their toes. They yell. They clap. They taunt.

And the people with them don’t exactly tamp down the chaos level.

“The first time I did it, I released my bowling ball in the crowd,” said Julia Lown, who was quick to add that she got a strike on her next frame.

Fortunately, the alley can’t get damaged, the spectators aren’t in any danger and you don’t have to dread getting your fingers stuck on those three little holes when you toss the ball.

The folks at Bay View, the independent living facility on North Main Street, were playing a bowling simulation on the Wii (rhymes with tea) console game system, where pressing a button on a wireless controller and moving your arm to mimic the motion of rolling a ball is enough to send a simulated ball whirling toward a set of simulated pins.

But the excitement was real as eight residents competed on two teams and at least a dozen others acted as enthusiastic spectators for the facility’s first-ever virtual bowling tournament in the library.

“You were robbed,” yelled Donald Oldham, 69, as one of the pins wobbled on the 60-inch screen but refused to fall. “That’s glued to the floor.”

“It just goes to show you never lose your competitive spirit, no matter how old you are,” said Sailynn Doyle, owner of Home Instead Senior Care in North Dartmouth, which sponsored the tournament.

The game also promotes social interaction, said Lown, the director at Bay View. It brings people together who normally wouldn’t interact. It also gives residents something to do with children or grandchildren who might come to visit.

“How exciting can it be to say, ‘My grandparents are playing a video game with me,’ ” Lown said.

“When I was younger, I used to bowl every week,” said Oldham, who served as the unofficial cheerleader, coach and commentator at the event. “I like this better. This is all fun, and we’re all friends.”

“I tried [real bowling] when I was a teenager but I was rotten at it,” said Barbara “Barbie” Norris, 92. But in this tournament, she was the only person to log two strikes.

John Correia, 85, a bit stooped over and unable to work on his crossword puzzles after surgery for a cataract and glaucoma, said he liked it because he didn’t have to move much, except for his arm.

“For our age group, I like this better [than the real thing]. I don’t think I could bowl now. My back is not so great,” he said.

But with the Wii game, he added, “you could play this sitting down.”

“We know you can do it,” Oldham told Correia, encouraging him when he ended up with a tough split. “You’re the man with the natural curve.”

Natural curve or not, Oldham observed, “The gravity gods are against you.”

“Shucks! Shucks! I didn’t help our team. I apologize,” said Norris’ younger sister, Dorothy “Dodi” Harvi, 87, when she didn’t get a spare. She figured that her last time in a bowling alley was during World War II.

“It gets us all excited. We’ve never had this before,” Harvi said later. “It’s pretty good fun.”

So are Bay View residents ready to move on to harder-core games like “Grand Theft Auto,” where the goal is to steal cars, kill people and produce a lot more mayhem than tossing a 12-pound ball into a crowd?

“That’s not for me,” said Oldham. “I’m a lover.”

There are other games on the Wii system, but it looked like the bowling game was going to keep residents busy for a while.

Said one worker observing the controlled chaos: “They’re going to be addicted now.”

gemery@projo.com