A new pickleball centre has opened in Montreal!

Let me ask you a question. Have you tried pickleball yet? Do you have the pickleball bug? Very popular sport, kind of really surged in the last several years, right across North America. And even right here in the city of Montreal, there's such a demand, by the way, for the sport, that a new court opened in the city and is seeing people of all ages, ages coming out to play. Valerie LaPointe is the co-founder of Satra Pickle in Montreal's Mercier Ochilagameznev Baro. And she joins me on the line for a chat. Valerie, good morning.

Hi, good morning. Happy new year. Yeah, you too. Valerie, did I have this right when I was talking just before the break that, you know, pickleball, I think it's been around for decades, but it really took off, didn't it, during the pandemic? I mean, people were looking for something to do, you know, physical activity and it was, you know, you could be socially distant. So it was one, it really picked up during the pandemic, didn't it?

Yeah, is that about five years that it's getting crazy in the US? Of course Canada and Quebec were kind of late in the way, but now it's starting to pick up really quickly. Yeah, why do you think it's so popular?

First of all, it's easy to learn. So after like 30 minutes of like a small class, you can have fun and have like a nice exchange with players. And it's very social. So you come with friends, with your wife, with the family, you can have grandpa playing with there is a grand song. So it's very open to everyone. And it's because it's easy to learn, everyone can play.

You know, what else I think is, uh, is helping the popularity. And maybe you'll agree with this is that, uh, it's, it's not very expensive. I mean, maybe this is not the right example, but you compare it to the, how expensive it is to play hockey or golf, for example, pickleball is very inexpensive. If you compare to any other sport is very inexpensive. First of all, during the summer, you can play pretty much everywhere in the city right now or free.

because they are either adding some pickle bar course or transforming some tennis court to pickle bar course, which is a big debate, but we won't go there. And even indoor, I mean, you just need a pair of shoes and a paddle and that's about it. So you can go play engines or you can go play

in the real pickleball facility that are now opening, like, something called the inner slider. Yeah, it's so popular in the States. Recently, I came across a couple of stories about how popular and the demand to play and places to play pickleball that some cruise lines in their brochures were on their websites were saying, and we have pickleball courts on these cruises. And I was reading an interesting story about some shopping malls in the US where, you know, some stores are closing.

And so what the owners of the mall are doing are taking a place where there used to be a store and using that space and opening a pickleball court. So some malls now are the destination to play pickleball. It's everywhere on cruise, all inclusive. We also just include Ned doing a special event like a month ago with urging him to shock in Montreal showcasing her their pickleball court and their equipment. So it's basically adding value in

so many industry right now, camping, any vacation type of activity you need to have a pickleball court now. With Valerie the point, co-founder of Sotra Pickle, tell me about the Sotra Pickle. So basically we're the biggest facility right now in Montreal, so it's 14 court indoor, we're 100% pickleball, so sometimes other facilities will mix it with other sports,

For us, it was our vision to be 100% pickleball. And we have one of the nicest surface, how do you call it? The court fabric is basically the same quality as the US Open. So it's very like a top quality experience. And the location?

location is in a schlager so uh... five hundred six hundred uh... five thousand six hundred rue a schlager uh... and we open for the last two months so uh... it's the kind of new uh-oh it's very it's close to my work i was mentioning on the air that my wife wants us to play pickleball together in twenty twenty five so maybe the first time perfectly i know maybe you're going to see us coming through your doors uh... so uh... what's the response been like so far

It was amazing. So we had a big open house in the beginning of November. It was 600 people in two days, which was overwhelming, but it was awesome. And now we're welcoming new players, new members, every single day, every single week. So yeah, it has been great. Yeah. It's a great story because, like you said, people of all ages can play. It's very social. And do you play yourself?

Yeah, I'm not that good. People are expecting me to be a pro player, but yes, I play pickle ball at a certain level. Yeah, sure. I'm looking forward to it. And oh, by the way, I'm on what saw to pickle of people want more information. Do you have a website? Yeah, it sounds critical.com. So you can get all the information there. You can book everything online. So if you want to book a course,

Open clinic session. We do a lot of introduction class as well for new players. So it's a two hour class with a coach. We rent as well the paddle for three. So that's a great way to start and discover the sport. Valerie, if you stay soon, a bunnani. Alright, thanks for joining us this morning, Valerie. Thank you. It's exactly 745.