Can the city keep up with pickleball fever?

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For Ann Marie Wood-Seems, she played and enjoyed racket sports before from tennis, to ping pong and badminton. But for the past few years, the call to another racket sport on the rise was contagious, and she caught the bug of pickleball.

Four years later, Wood-Seems is the president of the Fredericton Pickleball Club.

The sport has exploded in the Fredericton area in the past few years with more and more pickleballers young and old grabbing a paddle. Wood-Seems said in the last year alone, the group’s membership of folks playing on a regular basis has grown 50 per cent.

“It’s an easy sport to learn. How many sports can you go to a two-hour intro and play a reasonable game at the end of it? So it’s easy to learn, and I guess it gets you hooked because it’s not easy to master,” said Woods-Seems. “It’s a really fun sport to play, and it appeals to people of all ages.”

The Fredericton Pickleball Club was founded in 2015, starting with just 24 members. It’s now at 356 members, 245 of whom are playing regularly, Woods-Seems said.

The game was invented in the 1960s in the United States, but has exploded in recent years with millions of players in North America.

With the growth of the sport, the club is looking for more places for folks to play in the city, especially in the winter months.

Can the city keep up with the rapid demand for spaces to play?

Bobby Despres, the city’s manager of recreation, culture, and community development, said his group has been meeting with stakeholders to make sure the city is aware of what future demand will look like.

He said the city is in the consultation phase of its recreation and leisure master plan, expected to be completed by the end of the year.

“It’s taking a look at all the demands and all the needs of all the user groups within the municipality and ensuring that we’re providing equitable services to everybody,” said Despres.

The current dedicated pickleball court are located at Queen’s Square with three courts, and four courts at Nashwaaksis Middle School. Six more courts at the Willie O’Ree Sports Complex are hoped to be completed this year.

Despres said they’re in the final phases for the completion of the Willie O’Ree courts, and an announcement is expected to be made shortly.

“We couldn’t play pickleball a lot during COVID-19, but in the last two years, I’d say that the growth has been pretty significant,” Woods-Seems said.

At least once a month the club even gives two-hour introductory classes to get new player acquainted with the game. Folks also play pickleball in other parts of the city, more recently at the Abony Family Tennis Centre.

The fandom has also inspired businesses in the city to jump on board.

For 20 years, Mark Cain has been running his clothing store Marx Fandomania on Regent Street downtown. But for the past year and a half, he’s been in the pickleball business, running Cain’s Pickleball Store.

While he sells paddles and shoes for the sport, Cain said a lot of people come in just to talk pickleball.

“The store sort of turned into a drop-in centre for a lot of people who are either currently playing, or people who are just heard about it or seen it on TV, and they want to come in and talk about pickleball,” said Cain.

Cain caught the pickleball bug back in 2021 when he saw folks playing at Queen’s Square. For him, it’s about the social aspect of the game.

“You’re playing hard games against your opponents, and then you find yourself somewhere having cheesecake and coffee with the people that you just are trying to win against,” he said.