Pickleball courts open in Red Deer

Twenty new pickleball courts were unveiled at Motorworks Fields in Red Deer on Wednesday.

The Red Deer pickleball community will now have a new space to play.

On Tuesday, 20 new courts were unveiled at Motorworks Fields, making it one of the largest pickleball facilities in North America.

The sport—a combination of tennis, badminton and table tennis—has been gaining in popularity in Red Deer over the last number of years, with the club growing from 30 to over 200 people in the past five years.

“A few years ago, our community hadn’t even really heard of pickleball. But a club developed and ultimately travelled across north America and came back to Red Deer city council and said this is one of the fastest growing sports in our community, and asked to partner with the city in order to make this vision a reality,” said Red Deer Mayor Tara Veer.

The new field, including the pickleball courts, a soccer pitch and clubhouse coast about $1.7 million dollars.

“It is a great feeling, it is an awesome facility. The City of Red Deer has done an awesome job with it. You just couldn’t ask for more, it’s fantastic,” said Val Vollmin, the Pickleball Club’s former president.

Plans are already in the works to bring different events to the new courts.

“We will have one tournament which will certainly be the largest in Alberta in August, we will bid again for the national tournament for 2021, we will probably have two tournaments next summer, and I would like to have the biggest tournament in Canada next July,” said Volliman.