Pickleball tickles Calgarians
By Kathleen Renne, For Neighbours   March 4, 2010

If you can imagine a hybrid of tennis, badminton and ping-pong, then you'll have a pretty good idea of the newest racket sport to hit Alberta.

It's called pickleball.
 
Surprisingly, pickleball has actually been around for more than 40 years, after a Washington congressman, Joel Pritchard, invented it back in 1965.
 
 Even the Pritchard family dog, a cocker spaniel named Pickles, got involved; he's the sport's namesake.
 
However, as Brent Johner of the Racquet Network -- a networking organization for racket-sport players that started in Calgary -- explains, pickleball is particularly popular in seniors' RV parks and retirement communities in the United States, communities that the snowbirds frequent.
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