Community news

Love the Game

Last year, we launched the Love the Game video series to help clubs learn from one another’s successes and challenges. By sharing knowledge, experiences and best practices across Ontario, we can speed up club development and build a stronger pickleball community province-wide.

The series features speakers from clubs with expertise in the chosen topic, supplemented by guest speakers who bring relevant professional or technical knowledge. Recordings of most sessions are available on our Love the Game page.

Topics discussed to date include:

• Working with Municipalities
• Incorporation and GST
• Drilling PCNS*
• Sport Integrity
• Engaging Members
• DUPR and My Club
• Tournaments
• An Open Town Hall*

* No recording available.

The series continues in 2026–2027, with our first session focusing on Places to Play in the Winter. While some clubs are fortunate to have year-round facilities, many spend considerable time searching for and booking indoor space during the winter months, from church basements and school gyms to community centres and private venues. This session will give clubs an opportunity to share their experiences, ideas and approaches to one of the most common challenges facing pickleball organizations across Ontario.

Club Advisory Council

This year, we are establishing a Club Advisory Council to work with the Pickleball Ontario Club Engagement team.

We are looking for members from newer and smaller clubs, as well as larger and more established clubs, to help us better understand the issues your clubs are facing and advise us on how Pickleball Ontario can best support them. The Advisory Council will give clubs another way to bring their perspectives, experiences and priorities directly into our Club Engagement work.

Further details will be shared with club administrative contacts in the coming weeks.

If you are interested in supporting this work, please contact us at info@pickleballontario.org.

By Ken Haggert, Director, Pickleball Ontario Board

This past summer, I volunteered at both the Pickleball Ontario Championships and the Pickleball Canada National Championships. My tasks were minor compared with many other volunteers, but I could still see how they contributed to these successful events. So I decided to write this short article in the hope of encouraging more pickleball players to reflect on their own volunteering.

As I was volunteering and watching all the other volunteers, I asked myself: what IS pickleball?

The pickleball community is a community of volunteers

• Most local not-for-profit clubs and associations would not exist without volunteers.
• Most smaller groups of friends who play regularly rely on at least one person volunteering to organize the next day’s play.
• Even commercial, for-profit organizations rely on volunteers to lead, organize or help with sessions and events.

Without volunteers, pickleball as we know it may not exist

• Volunteers help keep pickleball affordable.
• Volunteers make events possible.
• Volunteers often run the Learn-to-Play sessions that help clubs grow.

How you can help

If your local club or facility isn’t offering a program you or others are looking for, whether that’s a ladder, round robin, open play or something else:

• Consider volunteering to lead a play session.
• If you’re unsure how to start, ask an experienced volunteer if you can shadow them and learn alongside them.
• Ask your local community how you can help get that program started.
• You don’t need to sit on your club’s Board of Directors to volunteer. Many programs and parts of a club are run by committee volunteers. Every club needs volunteers.

Whether your local playing group numbers four, fourteen, forty-four or many more, volunteers are often the people who make it possible for that group to exist, grow and succeed.

Volunteering can also benefit the volunteer. Research and commentary on volunteering frequently point to benefits such as stronger social connection, a greater sense of purpose and improved well-being. For those interested in reading more:

• Volunteering and its Surprising Benefits (HelpGuide)
• Helping people, changing lives: 3 health benefits of volunteering (Mayo Clinic Health System)
• How Volunteering Could Help Us Feel Connected Again (Greater Good Magazine)

So the next time you enjoy a tournament, league, round robin, Learn-to-Play session or regular weekly game, take a moment to think about the volunteers who helped make it happen.

And perhaps ask yourself: how could I help?

During the recent Pickleball Ontario Championships at Pickleplex Downsview, officials identified and removed almost a dozen paddles that were not on the USA Pickleball (USAP) Approved Equipment List. As a result, a number of players without a spare had to borrow a paddle in the minute before their match was due to begin.

All sanctioned tournaments follow Pickleball Canada’s sanctioned tournament criteria, and one of those criteria is that player paddles must be approved by USA Pickleball.

Tips for tournament play

• All Provincial and National Championship tournaments are sanctioned.
• The criteria for sanctioned tournaments are on the Pickleball Canada website.
• Check that your paddle(s) are on the USA Pickleball Approved Equipment List. An approved paddle is marked with the USA Pickleball logo.
• Bring a backup paddle in case your primary paddle is damaged, lost or stolen.
• Watch for overly worn paddles. At Provincials, one approved paddle with a felt surface was worn so far that the material underneath was visible. Hard-surface paddles can wear the same way.
• Be aware that knock-off and counterfeit paddles are common in the second-hand market (Facebook Marketplace, Amazon, Temu and similar).

Watch out for the other approval list

A simple Google search for “approved pickleball paddles” will also bring up the UPA-A approved paddle list. That list is used mainly by professional events such as the PPA Tour and MLP. UPA-A approval is not valid for Pickleball Canada or Pickleball Ontario sanctioned tournaments.

So as you prepare for your next sanctioned tournament, check each tournament’s equipment requirements, and bring a spare paddle just in case.

As Christine Kelly steps down from the Pickleball Ontario Board of Directors, we want to recognize and thank her for the time, energy and commitment she has given to our organization and to pickleball across Ontario.

Christine has made many contributions during her time on the Board, but her leadership in tournament development has been particularly significant.

As Tournament Chair, Christine played a central role in the planning and organization of Pickleball Ontario’s Regional Tournament Series. Bringing together venues, organizers, officials, volunteers and players across different parts of the province requires an enormous amount of work behind the scenes, and Christine took on that challenge with dedication and enthusiasm.

Her efforts helped establish an important new platform for competitive pickleball in Ontario and created opportunities for players to compete closer to home while progressing through the provincial competitive pathway.

Organizations like Pickleball Ontario depend heavily on people who are prepared to contribute their time, expertise and energy for the benefit of the wider pickleball community. Christine has certainly done that.

Christine, thank you for everything you have contributed to Pickleball Ontario. We wish you all the very best in what comes next. You will be missed.

I want to start by saying how proud I am of what this community put together over the past few months, from busy summers at clubs across the province to a competitive season that brought Nationals to Ontario.

Last year, our tournament season was Provincials and nothing else. This year, we added a Regional series ahead of it, in Kingston and in Cambridge, with a Golden Ticket into Provincials for the winners. Not everything we planned went ahead, and we will take those lessons into next year. A great deal of that work was Christine Kelly’s. She built the Regional series from the ground up as our Tournament Chair and set a standard the next person will have to live up to. Having brought it this far, she has decided it is time to pass it on, so we are now looking for someone to take up the role and carry it forward.

Then the national championship came to Toronto, and the Provincial Team Competition was hosted in Ontario for the first time. With Nationals close to home, many of our players got to compete at a national championship without the cost and travel of leaving the province. Our volunteers are the reason it all ran so smoothly, and Team Ontario came home with silver.

None of it happens without support either. Franklin Pickleball, TSS Pickleball and MoveBuddy stood behind us through the season, and we are pleased to welcome CBI Health as our newest partner.

Now we turn to the fall, and your Pickleball Ontario board is building its plan for the year ahead.

We are also looking for people. Pickleball Ontario runs entirely on volunteers. We need a Tournament Chair to take on the biggest tournament in the province. We need clubs represented on the Club Advisory Council. And if you have a passion for pickleball and want to get more involved, you don’t need board experience to start. We have volunteer roles where you can work alongside our operational board, learn how it runs and see whether it’s something you’d like to be part of down the road. If that sounds like you, get in touch.

Jonathon Moody
President, Pickleball Ontario

Pickleball Ontario’s 2026 tournament season was designed to bring sanctioned competition closer to players across the province while creating a stronger pathway from regional play to the Provincial Championships.

Four Regional Tournaments were planned – Eastern, Western, Northern and GTA. The Eastern Regional Tournament, May 8–10, at Kingston Pickleball Club, went ahead with 194 players registered to compete. It was followed by the Western Regional Tournament, June 4–7, at Pickleplex Cambridge, which attracted another strong field of 187 players. The Northern Regional Tournament scheduled for July 10–12 to be held in North Bay and the GTA Regional Tournament did not proceed after registrations did not reach the levels needed to support these events.

The Regional Tournaments gave players more opportunities to compete closer to home while providing a pathway to the next level of provincial competition. Gold Medal winners earned a Golden Ticket to the Ontario Provincial Pickleball Championship, giving them free registration priority entry into their winning event at Provincials.

The summer tournament season culminated with the 2026 Ontario Provincial Pickleball Championship, July 30–August 2, at Pickleplex Downsview in Toronto, where 564 players competed over four days for Provincial Championship titles.

Together, the Regional Tournament Series and Provincial Championships created more opportunities for Ontario players of different ages and skill levels to compete, progress and test themselves at higher levels. The tournaments were a great success, with players sharing overwhelmingly positive feedback about their experience and the quality of the competition.

A tremendous thank you goes to the players, tournament organizers, referees, volunteers, host clubs and everyone working behind the scenes who helped make this year’s tournament season possible.

We look forward to continuing to strengthen competitive pickleball across Ontario.

Tournament’s results:

Eastern Regional Tournament
Western Regional Tournament
Ontario Provincial Pickleball Championship

The 2026 Regional Tournament season is underway, creating more opportunities for players across Ontario to compete closer to home while building toward provincial and national competition.

The Eastern Regional Tournament has just concluded last month at Kingston Pickleball Club in Kingston, Ontario.

The last two Regional Tournaments are coming up, including the Western Regional from June 4 to 7 at Pickleplex Social Club in Cambridge, and the still open for registration Northern Regional from July 10 to 12 at North Bay Pickleball Club and Bourke Park.

All Regional Tournaments are Pickleball Canada-sanctioned and open to Ontario players with valid memberships.

These events are also part of the pathway to Team Ontario. Performance at Regionals and Provincials will help identify top players to represent Ontario at the 2026 Provincial Team Competition, held August 27 at Pickleplex Social Club as part of the National Championships.

Ontario earned Silver at last year’s inaugural Provincial Team Competition. This year, with the event taking place on home soil, Ontario will be looking to build on that strong result.

Players interested in competing are encouraged to review the tournament details and register before deadlines close.

Links:

Register for the Northern Regional

Learn more about Team Ontario