Pickleball growing in popularity in Kāpiti

Pickleball at the Waikanae War Memorial Hall.

Pickleball’s popularity has been growing in Kāpiti, and the Kāpiti Pickleball Club is struggling to keep up with the demand.

Pickleball is best described as a combination of badminton, ping-pong and tennis. It can be played indoors or outdoors on a badminton-sized court with a net similar to a tennis net.

Players use a paddle that is reminiscent of a ping-pong paddle but bigger and usually made of more advanced materials.

Jamie O’Donnell is one of the members of the Kāpiti Coast Pickleball group and said they’re very quickly outgrowing their facilities.

The group currently meet every Friday at the Waikanae War Memorial Hall, which worked for a while, but its four courts aren’t quite enough anymore.

O’Donnell said each court can accommodate four people, or 16 people at a time, but now that over 40 people are turning up, they need more courts.

“It’s not fair on the people that turn up who only get 10-minute games.”

Jamie O'Donnell playing pickleball.

But now he has exhausted every possible avenue for the club and is looking for more options.

They can’t add another session at the Waikanae War Memorial Hall as it’s completely booked out, local schools’ halls and courts are also completely booked, and there aren’t many other options in Kāpiti.

He said other nearby areas such as Wellington, Porirua and Levin have event centres with about nine courts, and Napier has even better facilities – they have two arenas with about 20 courts between them.

“It’s such a luxury.”

O’Donnell said he would love to see an event centre of that magnitude in Kāpiti, as the pickleball club has now had to stop taking on new members due to a lack of facilities, but that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.

“The success is making it tricky.”

He’s hoping the community can help solve the club’s problem, though, and urged anyone who may know of a place for the Kāpiti Pickleball Club to play to email him at jamierodonnell@gmail.com.

One idea he had was that anyone who had an office or warehouse they use during the day could, if they would be happy to, make it available in the evenings for the pickleball club.

“That would suit us.”