My first time ever seeing or hearing of pickle ball was in 2006 when we started going to Yuma, AZ for the winters. I liked to play badminton which was the only game I played with a racquet.

In Yuma many seniors played court shuffleboard and were always encouraging us to play, which we did. It seemed the encouragement was not there in pickleball. You needed your own racquet, balls, and needed someone to play with. I didn’t know anyone and my husband was very involved with the shuffleboard game.

A year later I met this gal from Southern Alberta with a fractured upper arm and was curious about her injury, to which she replied that she fell while playing pickleball. Now, I thought this is not a safe game for me. However, I was still curious about the game. Sometime later I learned that if you were a beginner, you could start playing between 9:30 and 10am, after that the real players had the courts. I felt like it was kind of a snobbish sport. I had a plan though. I don’t remember the year exactly when I decided maybe we could start this sport in GP with the seniors. I talked to the president of the Golden Age Club at that time and asked her if it was possible to start something there. I checked very carefully to see if there was something going on here but there wasn’t anything at all.

Some people that were playing in the U.S. knew something about this sport, but nothing was official. The president said maybe we could use the senior center and play there but I assured her that the ceilings were too low. I had to try and find people that were interested in playing this game before we could do anything. There was a couple from Beaverlodge and there were three others in GP that showed interest. The College, through Dwayne Head, said we could use their facility. I think we were charged $20 or $25 for the hour that we played but we had started it. I remember that they had these drapes between courts so you really couldn’t take a good back swing when you were on the north side.

I kept trying to get more members and phoned every week to make sure we had enough players to play. In the summer we played in Muskoseepi Park on their tennis courts. In November we would go back to Yuma so I believe it was Gwen Atkinson who said she would look after it while I was gone. Soon there were more people coming to play and one of the players was a member of the People’s Church and said that the Reach Center could be used to play. We had about 26 people. While there, it was open to all ages and so the membership grew. One day I played with a young person. He was a good player so while reaching for the ball, I twisted my knee and because I was a walker I couldn’t afford any such injuries. I quit playing and am still playing floor shuffleboard.