Find more courts — and friends to play with — than ever before.
Pock. Pock. Pock. The sound you hear is the fastest-growing sport in North America, one that has a momentum that just won’t quit. We’re talking, of course, about pickleball.
It’s a racquet sport that’s easy to learn and easy to play, but can get competitive fast, which also makes it lots of fun. Invented on Bainbridge Island in 1965 as a sort of cross between ping-pong, tennis and badminton, over the last 60 years pickleball’s popularity grew slowly and then, around 2018, simply exploded. In a January 2023 study, it was estimated that more than 1.37 million Canadians were playing pickleball at least once per month, up 50 per cent from just a year earlier. Heck, you probably play pickleball yourself.
So pickleball isn’t news. What is news is the number of pickleball courts being built to accommodate all of Victoria’s many pickleheads. Two new courts recently opened at Uptown, near Brown’s, but there are also four dedicated courts at McMinn Park, two at Tolmie Park and six at the Victoria Pickleball Centre in Langford.
The website pickleheads.com offers a guide to courts here and across North America, and has profiled more than 17,000 pickleball courts in 7,187 cities, including Victoria. It also connects players across the continent, offers instructional videos, provides advice on gear and more.
Players can also join — or start! — a pickleball club. Learn more at pickleballbc.ca.