Pickleball popularity growing in Manitoba

Indoor pickleball courts are growing in popularity as more people are looking to play the sport year-round.

“It’s exhausting but it’s good exercise for an old guy like me,” said Luciano Armenti.

Armenti’s tennis partner of over 20 years Gary Choloski finally convinced him to try the sport.

“I’ve been trying to get him out since I joined. I fell in love with it so much. I told him ‘You’re going to love it.’ He said ‘No, no, no, no, come play tennis with me never mind pickleball.’ I finally got him out today,” said Choloski.

The pair are playing at the Selkirk Community Church. The church already hosted pickleball players in their gym but opened up a new dedicated space for the sport above it in December.

Unlike the gym below, this indoor space actually mimics pickleball courts used outdoors, something that Vernon Irwin, who helped create the court says is getting rave reviews.

“It provides players the opportunity to practice their outdoor game inside a nice air-conditioned or heated space,” said Ryan Galashan, pastor at the Selkirk Community Church.

According to Pickleball Canada, over 1 million people are playing the sport at least once a month.

“When we first started it was a lot of the older adult age group, as time has progressed, we’re seeing more and more young people get involved in the game. You’re getting a lot more requests for evening and weekend play,” said Jared Neufeld, the manager of facility sales and booking at the Dakota Community Centre.

But as more people are playing pickleball some sport injury clinics are seeing an increase in patients of all ages who come in with injuries related to playing pickleball, especially to the ankles, knees, and hamstrings.

It’s why anyone looking to try is being advised not to go as hard the first couple of times they play the sport.

“You want to make sure you don’t jump in with both feet too suddenly. You don’t want to go from never having played pickleball to suddenly going five days a week. Start out easy the first few times you’re there,” explained Trevor Horvath, a physiotherapist at Elite Sports Injury Clinic.