90-plus and serving up spirit: Ping pong tournament unites B.C. care homes

From the sounds alone, you could be forgiven for mistaking the hooting, hollering and general cacophony coming from the Carl Mortensen Manor Auditorium in Burnaby for the merrymaking of teenagers.

You’d be off by about 80 years.

Those cheers — along with frenetic tics and tacs — were the sounds of an inaugural ping pong tournament featuring residents of four Lower Mainland long-term care homes on Tuesday.

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Most of the participants in Tuesday’s event were over the age of 90.

“I didn’t (like it) at the start, but I am beginning to find it,” Bob Hoggarth, 93, told Global News.

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“You can play ping pong with just about anybody.”

Leslie Torresan, recreation consultant at the Dania Home, said organizers got the idea after picking up a ping pong table for seniors’ week.

“They were loving it,” she said.

With the support of the Dania Home Society, they reached out to other Lower Mainland long-term care homes, four of which were interested in participating.

Torresan said life for people living in long-term care can become bogged down in routine, so the tournament was also a way to give residents something to look forward to.

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“You’re seeing the spirit,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter your age, you can still have fun, you can still have something you can look forward to, you can still contribute, you can still meet friends, and you can still have a great time.”

Thirty-two participants from the four homes turned out for the event, including 99-year-old Flemming Christiansen who said it was important to try new things.

“Some people say, ‘I can’t do that,’ and don’t even try,” he said. “You never know until you have been into it.”

Torresan said the Dania Home Society even purchased a trophy, which will be engraved with the winning team’s name and will be sent with them back to their home. In the end, the crew from the Normanna Care Home came out on top.

Given the tournament’s success, she said she’d like to see it become an annual event.

That’s likely good news to Joan Royale who at age 83 had one message for Global TV viewers: don’t give up on fun.

“Do it, do as much as you can. Be as active as you can,” she said.

“It’s so easy to stop doing everything and just lay around all the time, but try and be active.”