Getting ready for this weekend's Pickleball Ontario Provincial Championship

The Pickleball Ontario Provincial Championship is being played at Nipissing University this weekend.

Tournament Director John Halliday says they’re expecting about 160 people to take part.

“It’s not as much as we would have hoped for, but the nice thing is we have a lot of people from Northern Ontario,” he says. “About a quarter of the participants are from North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste Marie, Little Current, Callander and Astorville.”

The tournament includes men’s and women’s singles and doubles, along with mixed doubles too.

Spectators are free.

Tom Cook brought the sport to North Bay and says it’s really growing.

He says they started out with about eight people and have nearly ten times that number now playing at Canadore’s Commerce Court Gym and a couple other locations.

“Now we’re running 75 people regularly between here and ESC Algonquin in the evening, and Tweedsmuir during the day for the summer time,” he says.

Cook also says there’s about 60 to 70 players in Callander and another 100 in Astorville, too.

Pickleball combines squash, tennis, badminton and ping pong skills in a fast-paced game enjoyed by people of all ages.

(Photo by station staff)