There is so much in this world to be angry about, so many divisive issues to put a stake through the heart of a community. A climate emergency that has this country on fire and just obliterated a historic Maui town; an astounding misuse of power by the Ontario Premier on the Greenbelt. Want to have a knock-down-drag-’em-out-friendship-ending fight with your neighbour? There are so many worthy options.
And then, there is pickleball.
Hello from tranquil, idyllic Mayne Island, home to one supermarket and not a single traffic light. A short ferry ride from B.C.’s Lower Mainland, the Gulf Island’s population, according to the 2021 census, was 1,304, way up from 949 in 2016. (Thanks, COVID-19.)
I happened to be there last week on American National Pickleball Day (Canada’s fell a few days later, on Aug. 12), shortly after a relevant Canadian court decision was released.
In late July, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled in favour of Mayne Island pickleballers, dismissing a petition from a group of island tennis players who wanted to keep pickleball off two courts at the local community centre. The courts are lovely. Sitting next to the centre and its forested parking lot, they opened in 2008 after the Mayne Island Tennis Association (MITA) raised more than $150,000 to build them.
On a bulletin board, a posted schedule divvies up allotments for MITA and the Mayne Island Pickleball Club (MIPC). Never the twain shall meet. Public time provides a one-hour buffer between MITA and MIPC access.
When I approached the courts on a weekday afternoon, it was pickleball time. A lively group of players switched in and out. They were very friendly, immediately inviting me to play. When I explained that I was a journalist interested in the pickleball controversy, there was an instant chorus of “no comment.”
Here on Mayne, pickleball has shattered friendships, fuelled rumours, sullied reputations and ended political careers.
Pickleball attracts controversy, in large part because of the noise. The hollow plastic ball and ping-pong-like (but larger) paddles create a thwacking sound that some find intolerable. Over on B.C.’s mainland, a Chilliwack couple so upset with the pickleball noise from nearby tennis courts took drastic measures this summer to draw the city’s attention to their plight: a hunger strike. “As staunch followers of Mahatma Gandhi, we have decided to follow the path shown by him to deal with systemic injustice,” Rajnish Dhawan wrote to the city. The strike ended without a resolution.
I also live across from tennis courts in Vancouver where pickleball is played; the noise does not bother me. Although perhaps Mr. Dhawan’s neighbourhood is quieter than mine. (Or his hearing is better.)
Back on Mayne, where some machinery operating next door to the courts was much louder than the ball thwacks, a GoFundMe was set up last week by MITA in light of the court ruling. After undertaking the “herculean task” of raising the money to build the courts and being granted independent control of them by the community centre board, all was well for more than 14 years, the GoFundMe page states. “Until something happened that changed everything. The local pickleball club targeted the tennis courts for their own use.”
Thus ensued a power struggle at the community centre board which, the MITA asserts, led to pickleball dominance and favouritism. The group took the case to the B.C. Supreme Court, which dismissed it. According to the $50,000 GoFundMe campaign, the petitioners owe $21,000 in legal costs to their opponent, the community centre society, in addition to $20,000 to their own lawyer. They also want to donate $10,000 to Tennis Canada’s Kids and Community Tennis. The GoFundMe plea ends with a postscript: “Please note: we hold no bias against the game of pickleball, or hard feelings toward the players in our community aside from those in question.”
The sport was born not too far from here, on Washington State’s Bainbridge Island. Invented in 1965, its popularity has recently exploded. In the U.S., courts are even being installed in dying shopping malls. The first, yes, Picklemall, just opened in Tempe, Ariz.
I tried the perhaps unfortunately named pickleball for the first time in 2019. It cost $2 to play at a local community centre, neither my friends nor I were in very good physical shape, and I arrived not knowing a thing about the rules. An hour or so later, I had caught on and could participate without completely embarrassing myself. Also, it was really fun.
Pickleball is an accessible way for people to be active. It’s not prohibitively expensive or athletically difficult, and it’s easy on aging joints. Proximity makes it social; you are close enough when playing to chat, which is what I witnessed on Mayne. Unless it becomes so divisive that it stops people from speaking to one another.
Marsha Lederman