Yukon Pickleball Day has been rescheduled to May 1. Brenda Dion is a Director of the Yukon Pickleball Association.

“Sunday, we’re co-hosting Yukon Pickleball Day with the Canada Games Centre ... they’ve given us the Flexi-hall for five hours to celebrate and promote Pickleball in the Yukon,” related Dion.

“So we’ve been working on this actually since November because originally we were going to have this day in January. It was going to be like a new year – start a new sport. But then of course that second little thing of COVID happened so we had to cancel. We’ve rescheduled now for May 1 and we think it’s great,” she added.

“We have three sessions planned. The first session is what we’re calling the Educator’s clinic. We have spaces for up to 24 folks who are involved in teaching or leading groups of people and want to introduce pickleball to their groups or particularly, we’re looking for teachers who want to introduce pickleball at their school ... Yukon Pickleball Association has had so many requests ... so we thought ‘maybe this is another way to get around giving teachers information in a group and then they can at least get started with their school.’ So that’s a really exciting session.

“The second session, we’re dubbing this the ‘Challenge Court.’ Pickleball’s really grown here in the Yukon, like is in Canada and ... it’s actually a global phenomenon that’s going on with pickleball and we recognize, at some point, we’re going to need our own dedicated courts. We’ve been sharing with Tennis Yukon for the last two summers, I think, but we’re gonna outgrow Tennis Yukon’s facility, or at least they’re going to get sick of us.

“So at some point we’re going want to have our own space and we recognize that we’re going to need support from all levels of government to do that. So what we’ve done is we’ve invited 12 guests ... they’re either from the City of Whitehorse, from Yukon government, the federal government, or from Kwanlin Dün or from Ta’an and we’ve invited them to come and play. We’re gonna give them a half hour intro to pickleball so that they feel comfortable and then we’re pairing them up with 12 experienced pickleball players. We’re gonna do a little doubles round-robin tournament with them. And the whole purpose of this is that mostly it’s just ‘come out and play. Come out and experience what a fun, social game this is, how easy it is to pick up,’ it’s a game for all levels of activity of all age groups ... we think that they will enjoy it.

“And the idea is when we start talking about pickleball in the communities and start asking for support from government, they’ll have some background. They’ll know what we’re talking about.

“And then the third session we’re offering is what we call the ‘See-It, Try-it’. It’s open to anyone in the public. They can just sign up and we have 24 spots and we’re going to again, give them an hour and a half intro, come see what this is all about and maybe after you’ve tried it, you might want to sign up for lessons or you might come to the Canada Games Centre for their drop-in.”

Dion explains how many people are in each session.

“There’s 24 in the last one. We have 12 in the middle one because those are the invited guests ... and in the first session we have space for 24. We still are missing six and that’s from the Educator’s clinic. So I’m putting the word out again to some of the teachers and the teacher’s association and actually at the Kwanlin Dün as well, with their recreation folks to see if we can fill those spots.”

The “See it, Try it” has been full for a while.

“They’ve been full for a couple of weeks but the CGC’s been keeping a wait list because if we don’t use all the ... spots in the Educator’s clinic, we will move the people from the wait list into there. So we’re gonna try and make sure all those spots are filled,” explained Dion.

The sessions are definitely the right price.

“It’s all free ... only because the CGC gave it to us for free. We now have 10 instructors and they all do it for free. We’re just trying to really celebrate the sport, have people come by, maybe even watch some of the games with the Challenge Court, maybe say, get interested in it, maybe want to come out to drop-in, maybe take a beginner’s class, maybe want to join our Yukon Pickleball Association,” said Dion.

“We got a brand new ball machine – Yukon Lotteries helped us with that – so we’re movin’, we’re shakin’,” she added.

As for the main goal of Pickleball Day, “It really wasn’t to provide programming for our members right now, cause we do that every weekend. It really was to get people to come out who said ‘I’ve heard about it, or haven’t heard about it but I’m interested to maybe see what it’s all about’ and that’s the reason for it. And we can see how things filled up quickly, that there is an interest in it,” related Dion.

“It is really a great thing that’s happening and we hope people will see that when they come on Sunday,” she added.

The general public is welcome to come out and watch.

“Absolutely,” stated Dion.

“We really hope people will come out, even if they thought ‘I really don’t know if I want to sign up, but I’m kind of at least interested in knowing what it’s about.’ Maybe they’ll come, they’ll sit in spectator’s areas and just watch. That’s perfectly great, actually.

“I think this sport has the potential to really explode if we had facilities, if we had more spaces to play it, I think it would be fabulous.”

For more information, or to register or get put on a wait list, you can contact Dion by email at brendadion1@gmail.com or by phone at 336-3466.