(photo: Pickleball Canada, pickleballcanada.org)

Let’s talk about a sport that came out of nowhere, literally.

All of a sudden, the city was flooded with pickleball players before we realised and pickleball courts are everywhere, slowly eating away all the tennis courts. Sound familiar?

I was at a 5-star resort last summer with my cousin. I was kinda feeling like a game of tennis, but he was insisting I should give pickleball a try instead. I was like WHAT? Sorry, I’ve been living in a music cave for years and had no idea what pickleball was… All I knew was, it’s popular, because we had a queue for the booking that afternoon, four courts full while four tennis courts sat completely empty.

The resort was fancy, and they even had a PPR (Professional Pickleball Registry) coach to show us the rules and a few tricks. For a big kid like me who mastered ping pong at the age of four, I was flying across the court in no time.

The court was small, the ball was slow, easy to hit, great control — almost too easy! You could spin it nicely if you know how. The serve wasn’t aggressive, and you had to let it bounce back before hitting a volley. I could tell straight away why this game blew up. It’s low impact, super accessible, and both elderly folks and little kids can pick it up in like ten minutes.

We had so much fun that afternoon, I honestly forgot all about tennis.
I mean… who wants to sprint baseline to baseline in the sun when you can just dink and smash in a space smaller than your old school gym?

And that was it. I was hooked.

Since then, I’ve started seeing it everywhere in Vancouver.
Parks, community centres, school gyms — even some old parking lots turned into courts. People showing up with their paddles, calling next like it’s a streetball game. You can hear that plastic “pop” sound of the ball before you even get to the court.

What’s wild is, it’s not just retirees. There are 20-somethings, little kids, even tennis folks getting competitive. And there’s a pro scene. Once in a while I switch my TV to check out the pickleball games, I blame the PPR coach for it. He told us he plays some of those pro games. Well, the pros play it like tennis, it’s always legit.

So yeah, I was late to the party. But now I get the hype.
Easy to learn, hard to master. Chill but competitive. And most importantly it is super fun. That kind of fun that gets you back outside, laughing, trash-talking your cousin, sweating without even realising it.

Fancy a game of pickleball anyone ?