SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — It's a bowling ball balancing act — one that Mike Dekarske and Ron Schulze acknowledge they haven't mastered despite 20 years of combined experience.

But they keep coming back each year to try one of Wisconsin's wackiest tournaments: ice bowling.

The sport is all fun and laughs, but it's no joke. A trip to Las Vegas was at stake for the top bowler during the 20th annual Indoor Ice Bowling Classic this weekend in Sheboygan, about 50 miles north of Milwaukee.

The tournament drew 2,400 competitors last year, with teams coming from as far away as Nebraska, Texas and Florida. This year, event chairman Randy Ingels said almost every slot on all 18 lanes was full during the day and a half event, which began Friday night and ended early Sunday morning.

"When you go from a regular wooden lane to ice, nothing's the same," he said. "You just have to be able to keep your feet, because you're on a sheet of ice."

Mike O'Neill won the trip to Las Vegas by posting the high score of 98. Lisa Mercier was the top woman with a 90.

Tournament founder Dan Bogenschuetz dreamed up the idea after watching the popular 1980s Milwaukee television show "The Bowling Game," in which competitors rolled strikes for money and prizes.

"I started watching that show and I remember one day watching the news showing Lake Winnebago with people ice fishing, and guys rolling bowling balls and seeing who could get bowling balls into the holes," Bogenschuetz said. "I thought the idea of bowling on ice would make a great fundraiser."

The first year, there were 604 competitors. Some 1,004 people participated the next year, Bogenschuetz said. Since then, there's never been a decrease in the average number of bowlers per day.

The competition is simple, and similar to the standard game.

Organizers make the icy alley on one half of the rink, using rudimentary wooden ball return ramps and bumper zones to divide lanes. Ingels said the wooden dividers don't ever give or slide out of place — even with heavy bowling balls banging on the sides all day — because of a simple system.

"I water it just like you'd water your lawn," Ingels said.

To set the lanes, the water quickly freezes to the wood, and a few more layers of mist keep the lanes anchored.

Add pins donated from local bowling alleys and hay bales to stop the balls, plus kids from local youth organizations who work as pinsetters as a fundraising activity, and it's time to bowl, Ingels said.

A little beer doesn't hurt either, said Schulze, who bowls in several surefooted leagues and uses the same vernacular to describe hitting the pins just right.

"The more you drink, the worse your bowling will get because you tend to bowl like you would if you were bowling regular," he said.