It’s official. Pickleball is now so popular it’s only a matter of time until it becomes an Olympic sport. Ok, it’s not “official” official, but if I was betting man I’d bet dollars to donuts that it will officially become official within the next ten to one hundred years. That’s how popular it’s become.
If you’ve been living in a cave you may not know that pickleball is a game whereby two to four picklers whack a holey plastic whiffle-like ball back and forth over a net with what looks like an oversized ping pong paddle. The pickleball racket is not called a racket although it does make quite a racket when it whacks a pickleball, which is most of the time.
If you live near a pickleball court you’ll no doubt be excruciatingly familiar with the constant “WHOCK, THOCK, WHAP” sounds emanating from a group of mostly seniors in spiffy shorts and expensive running shoes happily pickleballing away all day long.
And yes, pickleball used to have a reputation as attracting mostly seniors but in fact, according to a source called “Pickleheads” players over 55 comprise about 20% of total participants. This is still the largest percentage of any group, although pickles aged 18-34 have almost caught up to the seniors (because they’re faster?) percentage wise. If my math is correct the other 85% is made up of former tennis players who have come to the dark side.
For example, Canadian tennis star Eugenie Bouchard has recently made the switch from thoinking fuzzy orange balls with a stringed racket to thwacking plastic pickle-whiffles with a carbon fiber paddle. And she’s becoming even more famous than she was before, possibly because there’s now a major Professional Pickleball League with tournaments on TV all the time, and attractive Genie attracts other young people into pickleballdom.
But not all tennis players embrace the Ball of Pickle. Many scoff that it’s “corny”, “slow” and on a “miniature court” and doesn’t take nearly the skill that a fast-paced game of tennis does. Ah, but therein lies the rub as famous pickleballer Hamlet once said.
The rub is that, unlike tennis, pickleball can, in fact, be played and enjoyed by just about anyone, just about anywhere. It’s relatively inexpensive and not nearly as demanding physically and dexterously as most sports. And as mentioned, you don’t have to carry your paddle far before you hear the “whack, thock, whap” emanating from the nearest PB court just around the corner.
I have personally attempted to play both tennis and pickleball and basically achieved one thing: a slam-dunk way to embarrass myself. I was a member of the tennis club back about the time Columbus was sailing the ocean blue and my big moment was at the year’s end championship tournament. We played up at the tennis court that used to be on top of a weird hill that was directly under the Green Mushroom (Onion?) water tower and when I lost I was so bummed that I went to jump over the net to congratulate my opponent and got, um, hung up. Painfully straddled as it were. One leg on each side. He had to help me off the net. I think I cried. I was 12.
And when I was a member of the local pickleball club after about three visits I played an elderly little grey-haired lady. She beat me like a rented mule. I had to withdraw from the game on account of I was so exhausted I thought I was going to have a myocardial infarction. She went on to play someone else and I went home to take up a much safer sport: reading.
Harley Hay is a Red Deer author and filmmaker. Reach out to Harley with any thoughts or ideas at harleyhay99@gmail.com.
