Pickleball news - February 21 2023

Spring league registration - Ottawa Pickleball Association

Registration for the spring leagues for the Ottawa Pickleball Association opens on Wednesday, February 22, at 9am.

For any leagues that are clearly full or "over capacity" on Wednesday February 22, registration requests will stop being accepted at 6pm that day.  Leagues that are not clearly full or over capacity will continue to accept registration requests on Thursday February 23 for a few more days.   Hence, OPA members should register as soon as possible for the leagues they are interested in.

Registering early will also help the OPA determine how much capacity they have to accept new members at each skill level.   
On March 4 and March 5, the OPA is holding assessment days to evaluate and assess the skill levels of potential OPA members who completed the intake assessment form (which had to be discontinued due to an overwhelming response from people potentially interested in joining the OPA).  So, it will be helpful for all current OPA members to register for their desired leagues as soon as possible before the weekend of March 4/5.

List of spring options:
https://ottawapickleballassociation.com/league/shop/
https://ottawapickleballassociation.com/league/general-information/

Terms:
"League" - these are normal leagues, where you play normal pickleball games each and every week.
"Skills" leagues - these are "skill and training" leagues, where you have an instructor to lead drills for several weeks; for 3 hour leagues, the first 2 hours would be drills, with the final hour being normal pickleball games; depending on how  many weeks the league is, there may be a few weeks at the end of the league that are just normal pickleball games
"Series" - these are clinics with OPA pro Ravi Prakash

OPA members can register for:

• a regularly weekly spot for leagues, skills leagues, and "series" clinics at their assigned skill level (e.g. indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red)
• a "spare" spot for leagues, skills leagues, and series clinics at their assigned skill level (note: if there is capacity for spares to attend, all spares are invited at the same time, and the first spares to RSVP get those limited spots to play that week) (to register as a spare, simply change the drop down menu from "Regular" to "Spare Only" once registration is open at 9am Wednesday)
• any "social" leagues (mixture of skill levels) (https://ottawapickleballassociation.com/product-category/mixed/)
• member court bookings (private court rentals available for OPA members to rent for use only by other OPA members) (https://ottawapickleballassociation.com/product-category/mcb/)

Kingston results - Team Selkirk Challenge

Many Ottawa/Gatineau players competed in the Team Selkirk Challenge tournament the weekend of February 17-19 at the Kingston Pickleball Club. This team-based tournament (like the Davis Cup in tennis or Major League Pickleball in pickleball) sees teams of 8 players each (2 players at each skill level) compete against each other.

The A Championship winners (the tournament overall winners) were the grey-shirted  SILVER FOXES, featuring 3 Ottawa/Gatineau players:  Ellen Melis, Sunil Gupta, and Paul Morrison.  Congrats (picture above)!  (I am not sure why Perth's JonBoi McConnell was not wearing the team uniform!)

Gatineau goes global!

Congratulations to Joanne Bureau (Association régionale de pickleball de l’Outaouais) for winniner bronze at the recent Thailand Open pickleball tournament! Neat to see local players winning around the world!

Une représentante Québécoise (Joanne Bureau) de l'ARPO au Thailande Open 3.5, gagne le bronze avec sa coéquipière de l'Australie.  Bravo!

GATINEAU TOURNAMENT REMINDER
The Association régionale de pickleball de l’Outaouais (ARPO) has confirmed that their Aprilr 29-30 pickleball tournament will be posted to Pickleball Brackets on February 25, with registration opening on March 8.  They have posted information on the ARPO website as well:

https://www.pickleballquebec.com/outaouais/
https://pickleballbrackets.com/pts.aspx

More local players join the Canadian National Pickleball League

Local players Maria Klokotzky and Ravi Prakash (both of Ottawa) have now joined the first Canadian National Pickleball League later in 2023. Local players Kim Brent and Matt Kawamoto were previously announced, so I believe these are the only 4 local players announced so far.

Player applications will be accepted starting March 1, 2023. 

https://cnpl.ca/

The dates have now been announced:

• June 2-4: Eastern Canada Draft Qualifying Event
• June 16-18: Western Canada Draft Qualifying Event
• July 1: online player draft
• July 28-30:  regular season event #1
• September 1-3: regular season event #2
• September 29-Oct 1:  championship weekend
  
  Financial Post article:
  https://financialpost.com/pmn/press-releases-pmn/business-wire-news-releases-pmn/the-canadian-national-pickleball-league-cnpl-has-officially-launched

Summer Preview 2023

(new information provided by club president)
The Elmridge Park Tennis Club is a volunteer based community club. We introduced pickleball in 2021 and every year we have more pickleball members attending drop ins!  Last year's drop in schedule will likely remain: Wednesday evening, Thursday and Saturday mornings. Additional activities are being considered such as a competitive ladder, skill upgrade sessions, learn-to-play training, etc.

Early this spring 2023, our courts will be renovated and tennis courts #3 and #4 will each have 2 sets of pickleball lines painted, totalling 4 pickleball courts. Also, an addition is planned to the small club house which will allow more sitting space for mingling. 

The online registration system will be open for applications in mid-March

Reminder:  singles pickleball league in Laval/Montreal

Reminder: Local pickleball product advisors / distributers