Pickleball has become a popular sport for hundreds of residents in Richmond and its fanbase continues to grow. It was mainly played indoors by the Richmond community, until they were left without a place to play their favourite sport when the pandemic closed all gyms and indoor courts. That is until, the Richmond BC Pickleball Association was created to propose an idea to city for new outdoor courts.

The courts at South Arm Community Centre and Hugh Boyd Secondary were built in the summer of 2020 and immediately helped grow the Pickleball community over the pandemic. David Yan, Vice President of the Richmond BC Pickleball Association, believes Richmond’s new outdoor courts have played a key factor in the sports growth.

“I think what happened also was with these outdoor courts, especially in Richmond, being built, there was more visibility to it. Now people were actually seeing others playing pickleball, and very often we get people staring, and watching, and wondering, what is this sport? And then learning to pick it up. And that’s how we’ve really gained our membership is people walking by, us inviting them to come in to try the sport, and then them loving it right afterwards.”

• David Yan, President of RBCPA

The Association will hold their first ever RBCPA Tournament Series to benefit charities in June. David Yan told us more about the upcoming tournament that will be raising funds for Kids Sport Richmond.

“What we decided here in Richmond for our first tournament is to actually do a series of days. Generally, we have our group playtime sessions happening on Sundays, so we’ve asked the city to provide us three consecutive Sundays where we could hold a tournament. So on June 5, we’re going to have women’s doubles. On June 12, we’re going to have mixed doubles, and then on June 19, which actually happens to be Father’s Day, we’re going to have men’s doubles. We’ve got close to 95 teams registered for the tournament over the three days, and we’re raising funds for a charity of our choice, which has been chosen by our board to be Kids Sport Richmond.”

• David Yan, President of RBCPA

Don’t be intimidated to try it out as it fun for everyone to play and all new players are welcomed in this fast-growing community.

Head down to the courts with your racquet and let’s play some pickleball!