On Sunday, at the Mount McIntyre tennis courts, the Yukon Pickleball Association hosted its first-ever tournament.

The original date was set for Saturday but organizers were forced to push the day back because of rain.

Twenty-three men and women signed up for the tournament which was run round-robin style and featured mixed doubles as well as men’s and women’s doubles.

According to Yukon Pickleball Association president, Colleen Parker, pickleball is the fastest growing sport in North America.

The popularity could be seen on Sunday, as a variety of ages signed up to play. Parker said the game is a mix of tennis, table tennis, and badminton - a very accurate description.

The court looks like a tennis court, just smaller. At Mount McIntyre, one of the tennis courts now has lines drawn on it to make four courts. Pickleball sounds like table tennis and it combines the light on your feet action of badminton.

The racket used resembles a larger table tennis paddle and the ball looks like a Wiffle ball, just harder.

“When you start playing you are addicted,” said Parker. “The game starts with strategy and it’s not supposed to be a bunch of banging, although we all get caught up in it once in a while. As you grow the game you learn more about the strategy.”

Parker could not say if it was the fastest growing sport in the Yukon but the Yukon Pickleball Association is trying to promote it.

“We’re trying to grow the sport,” said Parker. “As you can see there are a number of seniors here and we are trying to grow it and get more young players involved.”

The Yukon Pickleball Association is a new sport body in the Yukon.

“We’ve just started,” said Parker. “We set up our association in the past year so we still have a lot of work to do there.”

Parker said people have been playing pickleball at the Canada Games Centre for a few years but because of the new partnership with Tennis Yukon, who gave them the four courts, it has given players an avenue to play outside.

The inaugural tournament came about because there is now an association.

“Now we have an association we wanted to start doing more organized events including tournaments and coach training, those sort of things,” said Parker.

Since there is an association linked to the sport now in the Yukon, Parker agreed that people who have been playing the sport for a few years will have the opportunity to meet other players they may not have known were into pickleball.

Parker said she was happy with the turnout for the tournament and hopes for future events they can draw even more players.

“We hope that once we get some affiliates in the communities that we will be able to have other people from the communities come in and play in these types of tournaments,” said Parker.

A few young people are playing and Parker said getting more youth involved is one of the next steps for growth in the territory.

“That’s why we want to get coach training and hope that there will be some teachers that will take up on that,” said Parker. “Then we can get into the schools and get a broader demographic growing.”

The Yukon Pickleball Association still has a lot of dirty work to do to keep the momentum including becoming officially rated.

“We haven’t been officially rated, there is a rating system like in tennis and other sports, but we are working on it,” said Parker. “People have to get trained to rate. We’ve done some skills assessment sessions which is a semi-rating, just so we know what you need to work on.”

Parker said it is an exciting time for pickleball in the territory and the wheels are in motion for an indoor Yukon championship tournament in 2020.

The Yukon Pickleball Association was established in Dec. 2018 to promote the sport to Yukoners of all ages. In February, the Yukon Pickleball Association became the eighth provincial/territorial association to affiliate with Pickleball Canada.