When Josephine Lee came to Canada with her husband, Freeman Watt, in 1994 to escape continued unrest from the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China they landed in Burnaby where his parents were already living. Watt decided to take up lawn bowling because it was a sport he had been fascinated with since he was a boy walking by lawn bowling greens in Hong Kong.

Although Watt, who met Lee when they were travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway, was a supportive husband he played so much Lee, a cardiac nurse at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, realized she had to join him on the grass to avoid becoming “a lawn bowl widow.” So in 1998, she took up the sport spending a lot of time practising. “(Watt) is my bowling partner, my secretary and manager too,” Lee tells the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame.

Lee got so good she won the women’s club singles at the New Westminster Lawn Bowling Club the following year. Then the district singles in 2000. Lee had gotten so good so fast she was asked to play in other formats (pairs, triples and fours) as a lead for the provincial games. That opportunity a chance to bowl with elite, experienced bowlers and soak in their guidance and encouragement which did a lot to improve her skills.

A good example of that was the 2005 Canadian mixed pairs held in Parksville. It was her first national tournament and she was very nervous.

“I didn’t bowl well. It was only halfway and we lost a few games already. The chance of getting to the playoffs was slim but my skip didn’t give me any (harsh) words. Instead he bowled exceptionally well with his skills and tactics to save the match. He guided and showed empathetic encouragement throughout all the games. I came around and started to bowl better. We pulled through and I won my first national gold medal,” says Lee.

Since 2001, Lee has won 37 provincial medals (24 gold) and 19 national medals (10 gold).

A particularly fruitful year, she says, was 2009. She won national titles in the women’s singles and the mixed pairs to go along with winning the US Open women’s singles and finishing second at the Hong Kong Open.

Her play was so impressive Lee, who had represented Canada at the 2008 Asia Pacific Games, was selected to play for Canada at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India. Lee also has a second US Open gold medal in her trophy case