U SPORTS is meant to provide a way for Canadian university student-athletes to compete against one another at the highest level of competition, so why haven’t they expanded in nearly 20 years?
Pickleball isn’t just a hobby that’s become mainstream in the last year. For the past four years, pickleball has been recognized by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association as the fastest-growing sport in North America.
Pickleball, a fusion of three popular paddle sports, has gained popularity for its straightforward rules and the challenge posed by a steep skill gap.
Played on a bton-sized court, with a net that’s just two inches shorter than a tennis net and paddles that closely resemble table-tennis paddles, pickleball has found its place in the athletic routines of players both young and old coming from an array of athletic backgrounds.
In the form of Women’s and Men’s singles and doubles, or mixed doubles, pickleball is a sport meant to be enjoyed by all in whichever form you’d like and is easy enough for anyone to pick up a paddle and fall in love.
Recently, pickleball has been introduced as an intramural program here at Queen’s, with many schools provincially and nationally, also beginning to pick up this infectious sport.
Professional leagues worldwide, such as the Professional Pickleball Association, are becoming increasingly televised, and to compete at the highest level.
The last time U SPORTS sanctioned a new sport was in 2008 when they made the decision to include curling—back then, they were still called the Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union.
South of the border, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), a more successful and profitable sports commission with the same goal as U SPORTS, has been steadily updating its list of sanctioned sports and now includes twice as many sports as U SPORTS. Most recently, the NCAA sanctioned beach volleyball in 2016 and is also scheduled to include women’s wrestling in 2026.
As it stands, the NCAA hasn’t added or released a statement regarding any intention to adopt pickleball. However, club teams from around American colleges have been working together to create their own national championships, which has helped garner more mainstream recognition.
If Canadian university sports can learn one thing from its American counterpart, you must stay ahead of the curve. If Canada can stay ahead of the trend, U SPORTS and Canadian universities should be able to assert themselves as a home for fostering the development of competitive pickleballl.
With the ability to be played indoors or outdoors, pickleball offers itself as an easy sport to be implemented as varsity and club teams, not just at Queen’s but at secondary and post-secondary schools across Canada.
For those who couldn’t sign up for intramural pickleball, the Kingston Pickleball Club is located just off campus. Here, you can rent courts and play whenever you’d like.
Pickleball has been the fastest-growing sport for nearly half of a decade. Should Canadian universities such as Queen’s or U SPORTS as a whole step up and adopt pickleball as a sanctioned club or varsity sport, I believe the upside would finally put U SPORTS on the map as the pinnacle of sports development in North America.
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