Pickleball combines aspects of wiffleball, a court similar to badminton and a net close to tennis, and over the last several years, the sport’s popularity has exploded.
Kingston Pickleball Club president Ryan Hanes says they have about 200 members, and if you include some of the surrounding communities, that number climbs to about 500 registered players.
Hanes thinks the rapid growth in popularity comes down to it being accessible to people of all ages and it’s easy to learn.
“It can be played at a very competitive high level but it’s also much easier than most racquet sports for people to walk on and just play.”
The city of Kingston has now been chosen to host the Canadian National Pickleball Championships for 2019 and 2020.
After an unsuccessful bid to host the 2018 championship, Hanes says the club’s members were excited when they were successful this time around.
“We’re hopingto bring in some of the top players from the states and elsewhere. There will be pro events with prize money, so we’re hoping to have a decent prize pool.”
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Tourism Kingston helped the club with its bid.
Brooke Lenser is the organization’s sports tourism development manager and says successfully hosting the Eastern Ontario Championships this year and in 2017 showed the city can handle an event the size of the national competition.
Lenser says being able to use the city’s four ice pad facility, the Invista Centre, also helped in the bid proposal.
“Pickleball — they like to have all of their courts together in a centralized venue and so Invista Centre was able to provide that.”
The four-day competition is expected to draw about 500 competitors and close to 1,000 spectators each year, bringing a healthy amount of tourist dollars to the area.
“We learned from the last championship in Kelowna that it brought about $1 million of economic impact to their community and so we are speculating that over the two years, it would be $2 million to the city of Kingston.”
Hanes hopes the national tournament will also help the Kingston Pickleball Club with their long-term goals.
Belle Park, the former home to the city’s municipally-owned golf course, is in the middle of being repurposed.
Hanes says he would like to see some of that land used for pickleball courts.
“We’ve really positioned ourselves well to host major tournaments not just for the next two years but into the future. We need something that will hold upward of 30 courts in order to support those kinds of tournaments.”
The 2019 Canadian National Pickleball Championships kick off June 27.