The Yukon PickleBall Association (YPA) is hosting a pickleball instructor's course and player clinics this weekend at the small gym at Vanier Catholic Secondary School in Whitehorse.

Mark Renneson is a professional pickleball coach. In 2021, he was named the Head of Pickleball Coaching Education for Tennis Canada.

He will be delivering an NCCP level 1 Pickleball instructor course on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and a full day of clinics on Sunday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Pickelball combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping pong, and is played indoors and outdoors. It's becoming one of the most popular sports in the country, with an estimated 350,000 players in Canada.

Why the name pickleball? The sport started over 50 years ago with a few dads and their bored kids. Apparently, the game was named after a dog named "Pickles".

It's played with a paddle larger than a ping-pong paddle, but smaller than a tennis racket, with a wiffle-like ball.

Players are called "picklers", and when you lose, you have been "pickled."

Team Yukon will be sending a pickleball contingent to the Canada 55+ Games in Kamloops, B.C.

"It's a really fun, strategic kind of game," stated Brenda Dion, a director on the YPA board.

According to Dion, pickleball isn't only popular in the Yukon.

"It's all across Canada; it's all across the U.S. ... it's been building momentum over a number of years ... it's an easy game to pick up – it's less demanding than tennis, because it's usually played in doubles on a smaller court, like a badminton court.

“It's totally fun. It started out with more of the senior age group who picked it up. But it's now – the number one pickleball players in the world are now in their early 20s or 30s.

"It's becoming popular at schools ... within an hour and a half of your lesson, you can be playing your pickleball game. It's so good for lots of people."

Seventy players are registered in the YPA membership.

"But that doesn't take into account the people who come to play recreationally at the Canada Games Centre (CGC)," said Dion.

The CGC has pickelball listed on the schedule every day. Monday and Wednesday mornings are for seniors.

There is even a Pro Pickleball Association (PPA) tour in the U.S.

Dion explained what's happening with pickleball this weekend.

"We have Marek Renneson coming to Whitehorse to deliver a couple of different events for us. Mark is certainly one of the most well-known and well-respected pickleball coaches in Canada.

“He's got his new business called Third Shot Sports. He's also now the head coach for the national coaching certification program,” Dion added.

“That's a national program for all coaches across Canada, but he's specifically for pickleball.

"He's coming up for two reasons. One is to deliver an all-day training to those of us who are learning to be instructors,” Dion added.

"And then the second day, he's doing a series of four different clinics. They're about 2 1/2 hours each, and he's gearing the clinics to a couple of different levels of play.

“So people can sign up for a 2 1/2-hour clinic. Or two of them. Or four of them, if they want ... he also offers an 'audit pass'. So if you don't actually want to participate in the clinic, you can come and watch the clinics and learn from watching," Dion added.

"It's really exciting for us. We haven't had a coach or an instructor at this level here."

Dion explained the purpose of the event.

"There's two things. We have nine people registered in the coaching certification program. The idea is that these people will go on to complete and become certified Level 1 pickleball coaches.

"Those nine of us who are in the instructor training program, we did a three-hour online course with him (Renneson) last night, but the one on Saturday is all day, in person.

"The second part is the clinics are geared toward our intermediate and advanced players. So the instructors that we have now are certainly capable of delivering programs to beginners, but we wanted a more experienced coach to come and provide some clinics for our intermediate and advanced players. So this is one of the first times we've been able to offer this,” Dion said.

"We are overrun with requests for courses and clinics and 'come and teach us how to teach our kids' and at schools, etc. We just can't keep up with the demand. It's pretty well bursting here with people who want to learn how to play pickleball."

There is limited space at the clinics this weekend.

"The four clinics are maximum of 12 people per clinic. We could take up to 48, but ... I'm sure some people are taking more than one clinic ... I don't know how many people will have signed up for the audit as well.

“We could have a lot of of beginners who the clinics aren't quite geared for who want to still come and watch," said Dion.

"If the clinic is full, and if you're injured and can't participate right now, or if the clinic is advanced and you're not advanced, you can still come and pay a fee and watch all of the clinics all day if you want."

The clinics take place on the court.

This weekend is not for people who want to come out and try it.

However, the YPA is organizing a Pickleball Day with the CGC as a partner.

The event will feature three different sessions.

"One session will be for educators ... people who want to learn the game so that they can then go teach other people, like a clinic, or a teacher in a phys ed. class or a rec coordinator who has a few people who want to learn," explained Dion.

"The second session ... we're inviting a number of different politicians to come and be partnered with a Yukon pickleball player and we're going to play a bunch of fun challenging games (in a round-robin challenge)."

Twelve politicians will be paired with 12 pickleball players.

The third session is a "see it, try it", which will be open to the public to introduce people to the game who haven't played before.

"We actually had it scheduled in January, but then the restrictions came out again, so we had to postpone it, but it's going to be scheduled for the end of April," related Dion.

Sign-up for Saturday's instructor's course is closed.

A YPA membership is required to participate in the Sunday clinics.

For more information, contact Dion at Brendadion1@gmail.com or call her at 336-3466.