S4:E7: APA Results & PBC’s new programs

[00:00:03] This episode is brought to you by Anivia Pickleball, your premier destination for high quality pickleball paddles designed to elevate your game. At Anivia they are committed to providing players across Canada with innovative, performance-driven pickleball paddles crafted for durability, precision and ease of play. Irene and myself are currently using their Gen 3 Pro Paddle and if you head over to Anivia.com and enter the code AGORMAN15 you get 15% off your order. That's AGORMAN15 at Anivia.com. Alright, on with the show.

[00:01:04] Hello everyone and welcome back to the Pickleball Diaries. I am your host Andrew Gorman, joined as always by my partner in crime and certified pickleball referee Victor Chan. Oh, it's been a long week Vic. How's it going? And you're about to head out of town again for another dental thing so you're a busy man right now. Well, busier than usual and on top of that, well, I think most people already know the news. Unfortunately, I will be leaving.

[00:01:31] I'm leaving Alberta very soon heading over to Ontario due to unforeseen military posting. So, yeah. That makes me even more busier, unfortunately. Yeah, getting everything, getting ready to pack everything up, finding a house, all that fun stuff that comes with moving and all that stuff. So, but don't worry everyone. There's only a two hour time difference. So we will, we still will be able to do the podcast.

[00:01:59] Yes. And the nice thing is, is the one bonus we're going to, we're going to positive, we're going to take from this is that now that Vic's in Ontario, he can maybe attend or at least view and talk to some pros that are in Ontario and some pro events that will be happening in Ontario. So we might, we basically will have like a Western correspondent in me and we'll have an Eastern correspondent in Vic. So yeah, that's a little bit easier access.

[00:02:22] Yeah. So we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll take what positives we can from it. The unfortunate thing is we won't be able to see each other in person very often, or if at all, unless Vic gets some type of dental conference out in Edmonton. Yeah. There you go. All right. So we're going to try and blow through this cause we have lots of stuff to cover and we just came off of the, if you check our last episode, we just came off of the, the season open for the CNPL.

[00:02:46] But before that happened, we were at the APA Western open that was hosted at the pickleplex in red deer by Michael Chow and the APA group. Um, it was an awesome tournament. I only got to be there for three days. Uh, the, the tournament itself, I think was what, six days, Vic? Uh, yeah, very close. They started in on a Wednesday and they finished on Sunday. Yeah. That's pretty close. One, two, three, four, five.

[00:03:11] Five. Yeah. Yeah. So I got, I got to be there for three of them. Uh, just cause of work. I would have loved to been there for the earlier ones. Cause then there was some split age groups and I would have loved to take in part in some of that stuff, but, um, the big thing, and then we got to talk with a lot of people. If you saw our Instagram posts, uh, we got to interview a lot of the pros that were there. We got to interview Michael Chow, uh, who of course is the, um, the front runner for, for the APA.

[00:03:36] And of course, one of the co-owners of the, uh, CNPL team, the Northern lights. Um, and Michael said, this was the best turnout of pros at one of the APA events he's ever had. And we had like a who's who list, um, of was there. We almost had the entire Northern lights team, uh, minus Danny boss. Um, we had a good portion of the

[00:03:55] owls were there with Kim Layton and a Deshanco and McConnor die was there. Of course. Um, Joel Palachay are there obviously because that's his home court. Um, but we got to, we got, and we got to see some players we'd never seen before. We got to see Ben Davis play. We got to see Luis Kwong play. We got to see how some players have improved upon the last time we saw them, like watching, watching Jacob play, um, our local Jacob locally play at the pro level.

[00:04:21] Like we played against him and with him in like fun stuff at the hub. It's not quite the same as watching him play against other pros and just the improvement that Jacob has had was amazing. And Jacob pretty much owns that. Yeah. Basically sweep, sweep everyone except his partner in single basically. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Jacob was on the podium in every event he was in and, uh, that performance in itself. And it was funny.

[00:04:49] I was walking around on the Sunday and I joked with him and I joked with a couple other people and I said, okay guys, because of how well Jacob's playing plus or minus two splits and the same PL before he gets picked up. And I verbally said that to a couple of people and they were like, well, I don't know, you know, cause it's a West player and then most of the teams are East. Well, lo and behold, the Calamotos can't attend the CMPL season opener.

[00:05:12] So what happens Toronto United picks up Jacob and he's in the CMPL. Yeah. That was great for him. I'm so happy for him. But at the same time, I was a little, I'm, um, I don't know. This is a little shady. Like how, like basically Toronto United not having to drop a player and pick a player. I'm, I'm interested to see what happens once Matthew Calamotto comes back. Cause I, I, I, we need to double check the rules. Cause I know you're spoke originally. It was, you're only allowed to carry six.

[00:05:40] Yeah. Three guys, three, three girls type of thing. They technically have four guys on the roster right now. Yeah, exactly. But, uh, but what was the rule? Is it because they don't like, since Matthew Calamotto was not traveling with the team, are they allowed to pick? Maybe he's like an emergency substitution or something like that. We'll see what happens. Come, come the next split. When Toronto United plays with Matthew Calamotto is available, whether or not they keep Jacob and have to drop Rizzo, or if they have to just drop Jacob and he was an emergency call in.

[00:06:07] Then we'll have to see, cause I don't know the rules fully. We'll have to do a deep dive on the CMPL, uh, rules page that they have on their new updated website and see what the ruling is on that. Yeah. Um, because that, but that was, that was interesting to me. I was like, uh, I was like, Oh, what, how, how they can pick Jacob in, in there? Like, I'm happy that Jacob got, got, got into the CMPL because like he does definitely deserve to be on a team, but I was like, Oh, how did, how they did that?

[00:06:33] Yeah. How did, how, how exactly was there like a loophole or something they got to use for that? But exactly. But regardless, Jacob killed it. McConnor died, killed it. Kim Layton and Adashenko killed it. Kim Layton and Adashenko played together. And of course they're a team on the, on the Vancouver Owls. They took over the women's doubles. McConnor and Jacob took over the men's doubles. And then it was basically Anna and Jacob versus, uh, Kim and McConnor in the mixed finals.

[00:06:59] Yeah. So basically Owls swept all the doubles pro divisions. Um, and then Louise Quang of the Northern Lights, uh, showed how good of a singles player she is. Um, stomping all the competition in the women's singles. Um, the first match in the semis against her and Anna Adashenko was a little bit closer, but by the time the finals came around, it was like 11, four, 11, four. And Louise was just owning that court. And then as usual,

[00:07:26] it came down to McConnor and Jacob in the men's singles with McConnor winning that, of course, McConnor being the defending national champion in singles at the time. Um, as far as the event itself, I had a lot of fun. I wasn't overly happy with my performance, uh, in the event. Um, um, didn't get to come away with a ring, unfortunately. Um, and it clearly showed for me,

[00:07:49] especially different, the difference between playing on a multiplex court and then having to come and play on a proper pickleball court without being able to have some type of practice time in between to readjust for, uh, how the ball bounces and how the ball grips. Yeah. Um, especially on serve returns. Like, so if I not on a serve, the serve I was fine with, but it was on serve returns.

[00:08:12] I found when I had to do either like a third shot drop or a third shot drive when you're playing on a multi court surface, like a volleyball court slash multiplexing, right? The ball skims. So it's down below your knees. So you're used to doing your drops from down there and, and having to step into the ball. Whereas the ball bounces so much higher on a proper pickleball court. I found myself, if I'm stepping in too quick and then I'm almost handcuffing myself up by my waist.

[00:08:40] So I actually had to force myself to kind of stay further back, let the ball drop to where I'm used to connecting with it at. Hmm. And then making my drops there. Unfortunately, you know, react, uh, I'd made the adjustments too little too late and, uh, fell short of the, um, the crossovers in the, in both the, uh, men's and the mixed divisions with my, uh, with, with me playing obviously with Irene in a mixed and then my partner cam in the men's.

[00:09:07] Cause like we played our first game, not too great. And this is all, it was almost identical for both first game, not too great, probably lost to a team we shouldn't have lost to blew out the next team we played, like not even close. And then a very tight game, the, uh, the second game. And then same thing you could tell it was readjusting certain reads were off just cause, like I said, adjusting to how the ball bounces, how the ball comes off the paddles, getting away from our game a little bit. So, um, still had lots of fun.

[00:09:35] The competition was really, really good, uh, and enjoyed that. And then Irene and Anya played in the women's pro, uh, won their first game and then actually had to play against Kim Layton and Anna in their second game. And they score the first set they scored cause this, so the Oaks and just for a recap. So for everything that wasn't pro, it was round Robin one game to 15. And for those of us, uh, or for those of you who've listened for a while, I'm not a big fan of the single games to 15. It's different if it's on the B side of the bracket,

[00:10:04] because you've adjusted already. But when it's just round Robin one game to 50, it's a lot harder to make adjustments on the fly. You don't have that second set and stuff to adjust. Right. But on the pro division, it was double elimination bracket. A side is two games, uh, best two out of three games to 11, the usual, right? So actually the first game against Anna and Kim, Irene and Annie, I think ended up scoring seven points. Um, actually played very, very well. And even in the second game, even though I think they lost 11 to four,

[00:10:31] very, very good rallies. I was really impressed with how the two of them played. That's great. Uh, but of course they, of course they lose. Cause of course Anna and Kim won the whole thing. They dropped down to the B side and then you could tell it was kind of a letdown. You're playing like the best team you can possibly play. And then you play someone else and the adrenaline isn't there. Right. So they kind of spotted the other team a couple points too quickly. And then after that played really, really well. But at that point it was too big of a bridge to cross at that point.

[00:11:01] And then they, so then they got knocked out, but, uh, I still thought played very, very well. They handled their business in the first game when they played Ava and, um, why am I blanking? And Allie from Edmonton and handled that game very, very well winning in straight sets. Um, Irene did play singles, had a tough draw right off the bat. She got Anna to Shanko in the first round. Yeah. Um, I think it was 11, four, 11, four, something like that straight set. She lost. But, um, for someone who's only practice partner is me.

[00:11:30] And then also once again, playing on not a, uh, proper floor, not a regular pickleball court. And that was the first game. That was the first event she played in. Cause we got down there Friday and that was the singles day. Um, but I thought she made adjustments pretty well. And then she ended up playing, I think Cassie in the second and then just say singles is one of those ones is either you're on or you're off. There's not really an in between. Yeah. And, uh, same thing. Uh, once you're on that B side, one game to 15, it's hard to make your adjustments and, uh, go from there after that.

[00:11:59] So she's, uh, two and out in that one, but, uh, still, still I thought played pretty well. Um, now that our outdoor courts are finally opening up here in piece, we'll be able to get outside and get drills on the, uh, at least pavement instead of, uh, instead of an indoor court. Or maybe a plan for, uh, having an indoor courts in police river. Oh, I wish. Yeah. Good, good luck. Good luck with how this town develops things. Well, well, I will say you like, definitely not,

[00:12:27] you cannot wait for the town to do it. You have to basically get a couple of people, just invest that into it, into it and everyone kind of chip in and then, and, and, and do it, do it privately. There's no way you gotta wait for the, if you wait for public, you're probably, you're probably retired before. Yeah, no, exactly. And the biggest problem with that is finding a spot in peace because there's not really, there's like one possible building, but I don't,

[00:12:55] I don't know if the person is selling it because I know they've kind of looked at it because we do have enough kind of like richer retirees in our pickleball club who would consider doing it or considering getting a piece of land to do it, but the land is owned by the town and the town doesn't want to sell it. And then this other building, that's a possibility. The landlord isn't like, doesn't want to sell and isn't keen on renting it out for a pickleball complex type of thing. So it's, it's one of those things where it's a small town. There's not a lot of options.

[00:13:24] So we make do with what we got. So it is what it is. It's tough. Yeah. But travel to Grand Prairies. Yeah. Either Grand Prairie or Edmonton. So we will be coming up to Edmonton on the 22nd and 23rd. So I think we got some game. Irene's got some games lined up for us on the 22nd. I think her and Annie are looking to put together some people for the 23rd as well. I think, I think Annie is planning on bugging you about that. Vic, so I'll bug you about it now on the podcast. It's too late. I'm not back.

[00:13:54] I'm still not back yet. I'm still on Orlando on the 23rd. Oh, nice. Okay. Well, I'd, yeah, I'd rather that as well. So I'd rather be in Orlando then too. But, but yeah, so, but back to the APA, really well run tournaments. Everything kind of flowed really well. At least for me, there wasn't a lot of wait time. Yeah. Everything is flowing. I was there only on Saturday. I haven't refed.

[00:14:24] I should, I could have refed, but unfortunately I'm leaving to, I was leaving to the States on a course in San Antonio. So I was like, I'm going to miss my, my kid for a week already. I was like, yeah, I couldn't commit. And I, and I, I have to leave on the, on, on the Sunday very early in the morning. So I was like, yeah, if I ref, I don't know what, what time I'm going to finish. So I was like, you know what? I just kind of show, show up and just do a little bit of content creation,

[00:14:52] talk to people and then, and show some love for the, to, to Andrew and, and, and Erin and that, that, that's all about, that's all. And yeah, it has been really well, well run every, every, every, every, every, I will say every bracket has been running pretty smoothly, but I will say some matches was going very late at night or started, is quite late at night. I think that's due to the fact that there's only nine courts in,

[00:15:21] in the facility. So that makes it a little difficult on, on, on the scheduling, but at least everything has been flowing very, like smoothly. So the people are not waiting forever. Yeah, exactly. And the funny thing was, is I, cause I stuck around late on both the Friday and the Saturday night and they were out of there, even with certain events starting at six, they were out of there, I think by like 10, 15. That's pretty good.

[00:15:50] So yeah, they like that. Yeah. They had a couple of late starts because of the lack of courts, but they, they understood which events to stick where. So that way things would flow, flow pretty smoothly. Cause yeah, you had some, it was funny. Cause we were talking to some people, there were some people who were in like a 50 plus category and they were playing at 8 a.m. But then there was other people who were in a different 50 plus category, like say the three, five and they were playing at 6 p.m. But then that particular division only had like six teams. Yeah. I think they,

[00:16:19] they just kind of managed to, in order to know, okay, how far, like, I think, I think that's, uh, that's props to my, Michael knowing how, knowing how to schedule properly. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, kudos to them. Um, hopefully it was, uh, a good enough turnout that, uh, Michael and them decided to come back. Cause I will definitely go attend that again. Um, and like I said, the fact that that was, he said the best turnout of pros he's ever had at one of the APA events, um, all the more reason to do that.

[00:16:48] Cause not only did you get a bunch of the Ontario people come over, like, like I said, you had Alexis, you had Evan from the drive, Brad Chapman was there. Um, and then you had a bunch of, and then all the B all the Western pros all came over. Like I said, like aside from the ones who were already in a previous thing, but you had McConaughey there, you had and a Shanko, like I said, like all those players. So it was such a good turnout of pros. Jay, Jacob, everyone came, uh, came, came over, which, uh, which is great. But, uh, now I'm heading east.

[00:17:18] Michael, you can't just focus on Ottawa for me. Well, they do have a, they do have a bunch in Ontario, so you won't be short for a tournament. Everyone. Thanks for tuning into this episode. We want to give a quick shout out to our sponsor kitchen blockers. Me and Irene are sponsored by these guys. And if you're watching the video right now, I'm rocking their new red pair. These are safety glasses for pickleball players made by pickleball players. They're lens free, which means zero light refraction, zero frog, scratch free, sweat free, and gives you full court vision.

[00:17:47] If you guys head over to kitchen blockers.com and enter the code, a gourmand 10, you can get 10% off your order. Thanks again for kitchen blockers for supporting us and this podcast back to the episode. Exactly. All right. So jumping from the APA over to, okay, we have a couple of, this will be more in Victor's forte, but we'll quickly cover this. So the UPA, a made a rule change and we all kind of laughed at this when it got announced because until now,

[00:18:16] everyone's been doing the USAP rule book pretty much. Oh yeah. That seems to be, that seems to be the universal thing aside from a couple of paddle allowances that are allowed in the UPA, but aside from like actual rules on the courts, there hasn't, there's, it's basically been the one universal rule book, but this got changed, I think partially because of that controversy that happened at the PPA, but. Well, it was kind of long deal. So for, for people who doesn't know what's UPA is the United Pickleball Association.

[00:18:45] They actually right now got their approval, approval. Now they are actually a nonprofit organization because it was a for-profit organization. And people was like saying, well, like what was your conflict between UPA and PPA and everything's like when they, then people will be questioning, or are you like trying to benefit some player or other than the other? Now, now they finally get, get it as a nonprofit organization.

[00:19:15] So they, they can be a little, slightly more neutral, I guess, and especially in terms of like paddle approval. So, which is, which is good news. We, we like, we are pretty harsh on, like our comment has been pretty harsh on UPA, UPA, but at the same time, they kind of forces you, you, USAP to actually step up their game because, because, because they're stepping up their, their game in, and, and the pro side.

[00:19:43] So that definitely is definitely like, it was not very welcoming, but at the same time, I will say, if USAP was not moving, they need to make a bigger move. So I will, I will, I will say, uh, kudos to them to, to have the, to have the guts to just say, screw you, USAP, I'm doing on my own. Yeah. Right. So let's talk about the route change. So they actually, uh, finally released their own rule book. So that,

[00:20:11] that's completely apart from the USAP. So for most of a listener, listener that that's playing in Canada, you can just disregard this. You can just skip to the next section because that's not applying to you because those, those, those rules are only applied if you play on a UPA tournament, which is the PPA or the MLP. Uh, if you're not all the PPA challenger, however, there is the PPA Canada one.

[00:20:40] So that one will, will, will definitely apply. So if you're playing on the, those pro division, UPA rule will apply on, on, on, on those. Not sure about the amateur one. I need to confirm if they, they're going to stick by the UPA or the USAP. At the moment, what I heard is the USAP rule for the amateur. Uh, but for, for the pros for sure is the UPA, UPA, rules. So some of the, um, kind of interesting one, but people has been already seeing one, uh,

[00:21:10] has been the drop serve is dead in UPA. You cannot drop serve at all in, uh, at UPA. You have to do the, uh, uh, volley serve. Uh, so, so that, that's one thing. As Andrew just said, uh, that's because of Eric, uh, Eric Anson, uh, doing his, um, funny thing during one of the tournament, uh, uh, uh, what, what he, what, what basically did he did is, uh, I think a lot of people did it. I did it also.

[00:21:40] Oh, but Connor die probably has a highlight reel video of how many times he's done. make me, make me Conner and McConnell Eugene, they, they come and kind of did a, like, I know I've done it a couple of times as well. Yes. So what happened is when like, let's, let's say the blow just, uh, nicked the court and then lands very close, closer than that. You coming in, you're, you're able to retrieve it. Right. But you like, but most of the time can just pop it up. And the chance of crossing the ball, crossing over the net is very, very slim.

[00:22:09] So what you do, you actually blow on the, uh, on the, uh, on the ball to make, make the ball cross over on the curse current USAP rule. There's nothing going to prevent you to do that. There's no rules basically that's prevent you to actually, basically, uh, low on the, uh, on the ball or use like another option is you use your paddle and you like put some wind on it to make, make the ball, ball cross, uh, cross the net. So on,

[00:22:38] on the USAP side, absolutely not, not, no, uh, no, no rule that's prohibit you to do that. But now on the USAP, is it, uh, UPA actually, they's gonna, they said, you are not allowed to put any external that force that, and on, onto the ball in, uh, during a rally. So therefore you cannot blow on the ball, on the ball in order to make, make, uh, make,

[00:23:07] make the ball do something else. Yeah. So if you do that, they're gonna, they're gonna consider as a spokesman like conduct, which is, uh, which will result on a technical warning. Yeah. And to be honest, I don't understand why this rule is getting put in. I think it's more, they're doing it. They're doing it to cover that one ref's ass that, that called it unsportsmanlike or called it distraction, whatever. Yeah. And, and, and we, and we have a big, uh, I have a big discussion on online also on,

[00:23:37] on this, about, about, about that. I'm not going to name names. Like people know, knows already what, what, what, what happened. That, that reels has been, uh, reels on Instagram has been shared multiple times. Like I, I did put share some, my, my comments. I have like pros and cons, like on the pro side, I agree. Like you're basically applying that external force basically on, on, onto the ball to make the ball do something else than using your paddle.

[00:24:06] So like if you look at other sport, like, uh, tennis or padel, whatever, you don't really see that, but, uh, happening, or you don't even, even see that, uh, people do that on the con side. I will say, well, you don't basically, there's no rule that probates you to do that. And suddenly you basically call, this is a, and stop unsparsment like con, uh,

[00:24:36] conduct without actually putting a rule. Obviously now they put it into a rule. So now, now they can justify it. But before, like what happened to Eric Anson on that time is there's no rule that was, uh, forbid him to, to do that. Like, why did you, did, did you come basically, uh, the referee, I will, I almost say the referee come up with the rule, uh, on, on the spot to just, to try to justify his, his, his, his action. So that, uh,

[00:25:06] that, that was a very strange, uh, to me, especially as a, like as a referee, you don't never really want to make up rules in, uh, to make, especially make, make your, make the players challenging your decision, like compared to like, if it's back and right. Okay. You, you did that. And I can, I can tell you on the rule, something, something is written there. You cannot do that. But then the red players say, yeah, okay, you're right. Yeah. Ref. You're right. That's it. But in this case,

[00:25:37] Eric Anson has, has, has, have actually quite, quite, quite a bit, bit, uh, leverage because there's basically nothing that is supposed to, uh, prohibit him to do that. Right. And technically the referee cannot even come up with, with, uh, with, uh, a rule that is actually not being written on, on the rule book and to charge him on, on something and charge him being an unspokenly conduct on that time. I,

[00:26:06] I think it was very, uh, way too harsh. Like the people, other people, people has also been talking about like, what, what, what, what about like Christian Ocean stomping on the court? Why don't you give him a, a sportsman like conduct? Like, uh, CJ clinic flashing his paddle. Why don't you give, give him an unspokenly like, like conduct? Like all those things could be unspokenly like conduct because, uh, the referee say, well, this is not a pickleball. Okay. Then like, he yelling like crazy.

[00:26:36] That's not an act of pickleball. Then why don't you give, give, give her a, uh, like a technical warning leader. Right? So if, if nothing is on the road, the referee should not kind of inject himself. And we have been telling, uh, uh, a lot of referee, uh, a long times, never try to inject yourself in, in, in, in, into the game. You should just enforce the rule and, and let, let, let the player plays that play, play their game. Anyway. Yeah.

[00:27:06] And for me, it's like, if it's not in the rule and it's an, I honestly thought when I, the very first time I ever saw someone, I was like, Oh, that's an, that's an ingenious way to get the ball over the net. Yeah. Cause it's no different than if you're playing in the wind and you pop the ball up because you know, the wind is behind your back and you let the wind do the work for you. Yeah, exactly. Then you, are you just going to call the wind is a, it's possible like conduct. No, you can't do it. They're calling it. Yeah. And that's how, that's how I look at that. And honestly,

[00:27:32] the only other sport I could think of where you could possibly do this and it would be way more difficult to do it would be table tennis. Cause every other, cause every, there's no, every other, every other racket sport you mentioned, the, the ball is way too heavy. There's no way you can do it. Like tennis, the tennis ball is way too heavy to do it. You can do it, but it's too fast. There's no way, no way to do it. Yeah. Well, no. Cause like I'm, cause every now and then you see that happen in tennis where like, the person has to like come in and like just tap it over the net. It's way less way.

[00:28:01] It happens way less in tennis. But like, even then that ball is way too heavy for any to blow that over. Same thing with Paddle. Same thing with like squash, anything like that. One squash, there's no net anyway. So there's not really anything you can blow the ball over, but like ping pong would be the only one where the ball is light enough for you to be able to do that. But once again, the, because of how the table is set up for you to come over and blow the ball over the net, you're basically creating a fault. Cause you have to like fall on the table. Yeah. Or,

[00:28:29] or you have to be like basically walking on the, like kind of like, kind of like we call the Ernie on the side. Exactly. But, but you can't like, basically you're, you're a massive disadvantage if you're on the side of the table anyway. Right. You can't do that. Yeah. Cause yeah. Pickleball is kind of the only sport with a ball that would allow you to get away with such a shot. And so for me, that's just an ingenious decision. That's just an ingenious idea that a player came up with that, that technically is within the rules until now, at least for the UPA.

[00:28:59] Well, for the UPA, UPA, but well, now, now they put it on the rule book and okay. Yeah. You can enforce it as much as you want. A couple of other, other rules, but that's not very pertinent. You can paddle challenge. You can challenge your, your, your opponent's paddle. Obviously it comes with, with pros and cons. If you find out that your, your, the paddle you challenged was actually legal, then you,

[00:29:29] you get a fine or, but if the paddle that you challenged was indeed illegal, then that play, that offended player is getting, getting a fine. So that, that's, that's good, good, good news. But at the same time, I think things has been tidying up quite a bit now, especially on the PPA side, they have been testing those, those, those paddle very rigorously. So I, I don't think it's happening as, as much as before.

[00:29:59] A couple of other rules, like, like other challenges, like basically, but that's more personal, like, especially on, on the center court with video challenges. So I, I don't, those are not, not very pertinent because like, uh, uh, uh, rec game, you definitely not going to have video challenges. Yeah, exactly. Um, keeping up with, uh, rules and laws and stuff. Uh, EULA came out and just sued the crap out of everyone.

[00:30:29] Um, so, uh, uh, a couple of the companies named in this, uh, lawsuit were Franklin, Proton, RPM, Engage, Friday, uh, Dynam, Falcos, Pro XR, Paddle Tech, Adidas, and Voltar. Um, Volair. Volair, sorry. Volair. Volair. Um, um, yeah, Vic, so, uh, I,

[00:30:55] this is kind of one of those things where we kind of laugh about it because it is just like any other sport. It's a copycat, uh, league and copycat business. But, um, I have a feeling that the timing of this, uh, is the more major factor of why EULA did this. Uh, can you expand on that? Yeah, definitely. I did. Actually, I did talk to one of my, uh, one of my good, uh, good friend, Jesse Parks, because he, he's a lawyer, right? So I told him, Hey, Jesse, what, what, what do you think about, about,

[00:31:24] about that lawsuit? What do you, what do you think, think and think about it? So he, uh, so he, he did mention, uh, mentioned to me that, well, yeah, uh, there's a couple, a couple, a couple of things, right? For, for first, first of all, we know EULA has been kind of lacking behind a little bit in gen, uh, gen four technology because they like, even in their, like the pro five, they just launched. It's technically a gen three paddle, right? And, and there is, there's,

[00:31:53] they added that tech flex, uh, sorry, uh, for, for the audience. I haven't been able to, um, do much paddle review because I was so, so busy lately, but I will try, I will definitely try to do the review for the, uh, the review for the, for the YULA Persia five, which what, uh, is quite, uh, like, I will say for certain ball and certain play style is actually a very nice paddle. But for the majority of,

[00:32:23] uh, of, of the pickleball players, I will say probably not, not like there is other better play paddles than, than that one to, to, to buy. And I, I will say you, you'll also, I will say they, they, they were a little bit of victim of, uh, of their success, right? They, they started, uh, what they, multi, uh, 15 and their, the YULA three that got banned after, right? Uh, success with,

[00:32:53] with their trampoline, uh, uh, uh, uh, the, the trend trampoline effect, which is the foam foam edge foam, uh, that they place on the, on the edges of the, of their paddle that makes them so popular. And then now you're just seeing a flood of Alibaba and T-Boo copycat, uh, that's selling a, just a fraction of the, of the price of the, of YULA. And then you have, uh,

[00:33:20] just tons of tons of PPP people just buying them instead, instead of buying YULA. I, I do, I do get, I do get it. Like, uh, it does create a quite a bit of, uh, loss in revenue in, in, in their terms, but at the same time, like all, all the other pair, smaller Epical Ball company, they now moving on from the Gen 3 technology to the Gen 4 technology. So for the audience, what's Gen, Gen 3, Gen 4? What the heck is that?

[00:33:49] Gen 3 technology is basically homicom, uh, pad paddle in the center still. Uh, on the core, but they, they have the, uh, the foam edges. Uh, they have that, the foam insert on the edge of the paddle. So which, uh, your, your convention, like most of your conventional paddle, the 11, 6, 20, 24 power series, um, your, uh, Salker SLK, uh, uh, paddle, obviously your, your, your, your Persis 4,

[00:34:19] Persis 5, 3S, the, all, all, all those, all those, uh, Gen 3 technology. Now the Gen 4 technology, they actually came in late last year, beginning of this year. What it is, is instead of homicom center, they're now using a full foam in, in, inside. They're still using the edge foam, but they, they put a different foam in, into the center of, of the core, either an EPP core, or an MPP, uh, uh, Uh,

[00:34:49] those, uh, those foam, for some, um, they allegedly saying is, you know, going to be more longer lasting than, than, than the homicom. Some, unfortunately, um, uh, I, I, I've been monitoring, uh, some, some of the, that discord and, uh, paddle and going on. Some company was doing better than the, the other. Um, I will say over, all longevity was a little bit better and, uh, and is a,

[00:35:18] a bigger hype than, than the current Gen 3 technology. Yola decided not to follow suit for the Gen, Gen 4 technology. And when, uh, so the Perseus 5 or the Pro 5 series are still Gen, Gen 3 technology. So, they, so now talk, let's talk about the lawsuit. The lawsuit is actually, they, they, they're going through two different pattern infringements.

[00:35:44] So they're saying for one of the pattern is saying using foam into the, uh, into the paddle. They, they're like, they said they did put in, uh, like a, a pattern, a submission on using a foam on, on, on the, uh, under the paddle. And secondly, the sex, uh, the second, uh, kind of bad pattern is putting foam on the edge of the paddle. So like, uh, they,

[00:36:13] they say they are the one that pattern, that trampoline technology that, that put, putting the, the, the foam around the edges of the, uh, of the paddle. So there's actually an, an update, uh, on, on the, on the lawsuit, because at first they just go going after, go going just after, uh, the, uh, the international, uh, copyright committee to actually what, what, and, and that one, what, what it does is try to just stop. If let, let's say they want,

[00:36:42] like they win the lawsuit, but what it does, they're going to stop every other company that's doing those two patterns, to sell in USA. But now, uh, there's an update. Now Yola is actually, actually also seeking monetary compensation of company, uh, copying them, uh, doing this. Yeah. Um,

[00:37:12] I don't know, because, because foam, foam on the edge. I don't, like I, I'd, I'd have to actually see like the actual patent written up, because the biggest thing with, when you're talking about patent and copyrights and stuff like that, as someone who works or owns a company that has a bunch of patents on things like for, uh, bread and all that type of stuff with subway, um, patents are very, very specific. Yeah. And, and if, if it's like, if someone like, say for example,

[00:37:42] it's Friday, they show that, yeah, we have it around the edge, but we do it in this particular technique. Exactly. In comparison to this is how EULA does their technique. So technically, yeah, it's, the idea is similar, but it's not, we have, we're not a direct copy. Like how, how many percent was copy or how, like the location of the foam, which foam has been put, where was it? Uh, where is it, but which thickness, right? There is so many variants that you can play with, right? Yeah.

[00:38:10] And like, like in my side of view, like I have pros and cons, obviously down on the side of EULA, pro side of EULA. Definitely. I agree. Like, like, like, like I said, that was Timu, those Alibaba, like China didn't care about copyright. They just flooded all those copy, uh, copycat paddles. And indeed it does actually cause quite, quite a bit, bit of, uh, trouble for, for EULA because now people are buying those 50,

[00:38:40] dollars paddle instead of buying the EULA three, 300 or $400 paddle. Right. So that, that's definitely, definitely some sort of damage, uh, for, on, uh, for, for them because now P and for consumer that doesn't know, Oh, uh, Timu is selling a copycat of a EULA. They have no clue. I talk a lot of people that bought those paddles. They have no, Oh, they look, they looks the same. And then I was like, uh, no, they're not the same. And you cannot use them on,

[00:39:10] in tournaments. I was like, what? It looks like exactly the same is, is working with an USAP approved. I was like, yeah, but there's no logos on there. That's not EULA. So like consumer have no idea though. Those are not, uh, like those are copycats basically. So it, it, it, and also indeed they kind of, they brought the, the wave of Gen three technology in, in,

[00:39:40] let's, uh, come, come, come up some of their innovation. On the other side of things is like, uh, are you a little late to, to put, put, put on, uh, that, that copyright infringement lawsuit, something, because no one cares about Gen three anymore. Right. Everyone's going Gen, uh, Gen four first. Yeah. Everyone's developing Gen four past. I like even, like, cause I'm just, I'm just waiting for my Gen four from Anivia to show up because they've already announced that it's on the way.

[00:40:10] So I'm, I'm hoping that I get it before, uh, provincial so I can practice with it a bit and then use it at the end at provincials and for nationals. But like, I'm super stoked to get an upgrade for sure. Awesome. Uh, make sure, make sure to get, get me one. Tell, tell them to give me one too. Uh, tell Nathan, give me one. I need to review, review it. So, uh, but I go back, let's, let's go back to, to the Yola lawsuit. And the other same thing is like, I'm sorry, your paddle is still producing China in all,

[00:40:40] all the same manufacturer, uh, like a company anyway. So you, and you don't own, own that manufactured company anyway. And all those paddles are coming from the same industry. So, like, I, I don't know how they're going to, they, they, they, they're going to be able to, uh, try to make a case because unless they say I'm making on my own, uh, industry or my own, uh,

[00:41:09] my own manufacturing, uh, factory. it's tough because you're like, everyone can have access to that factory. Right. Yeah. yeah, I think it might be a part of a play, uh, maybe to slow down some of those companies that were listed in there, like, especially some of the ones that are up and coming, like RPM up and coming, um, proton around proton's been around, but yeah, Friday, Friday was like, uh, gone and come back. They, they, they just never,

[00:41:38] not stop catching a break from here and there. Oh my God. Or them. Yeah. And then like, and of course with Adidas, like trying to, uh, get their way into the pickleball by slowing that down. You're, uh, you're trying, you're slowing that company down. So it's, I can see it that way. Like, you're not really going to slow down Franklin. You're not really going to slow down engage or paddle tech. Cause they've been around, they've been around for a long time. Same. Um, pro XR also has been around for a fair amount as well. Sorry. It's that.

[00:42:08] Bruce, sorry. It's actually a part of paddle tech. Like they don't exist anymore. Yeah. So, so I, yeah, I don't know why they're listed separately. It should just be all under the paddle tech umbrella, but it's just so weird. I don't know. But yeah. So like, you're not, yeah, you're not going to slow down though, those bigger, bigger ones, but yeah, I can see trying to slow down some of the newer ones that are using it now to like stop the, uh, like, I guess, over saturation of the market. But, uh, yeah, in the long run, like you said, with the T-moo stuff, like for people who are playing rec,

[00:42:38] they don't care. Like if they're just getting out in there to have like, you know, get some exercise, be social, have a good time. But then again, that's not your target audience anyways. Like it originally part, partly was, but now your target audience is the people who go to tournaments. That's the whole reason why you make sure your paddles are USAP approved, UPAA approved for people that go to tournaments. That's what you're paying that extra massive amount of money for is because it costs a lot to get your paddle on that list.

[00:43:04] But for people who don't go to tournaments and just go to club every like three times a week and play with their buddies and stuff. Yeah. if put this way, if I wasn't doing tournaments and I was just playing pickleball for the hell of it, I'd only go buy a $50 paddle as well. All right. Like so expensive, like 400 bucks. Like, Oh, I can get it for 50 bucks. Exactly. Right. Like I'm super, I'm so happy. Like I said, because I'm, because I'm sponsored with Anivia that like, I haven't had to pay for a paddle for like three years now, but I'm just like,

[00:43:32] I can only imagine like how much that saved me because like, cause I go to tournaments all the time. I probably go through like two, like one, one, two, maybe two and a half paddles a year. Like if you're talking about wear and tear on the paddle, like losing its grit and losing its, some of its poppiness and stuff like that. So for sure. So yeah, I could only imagine if I had to start paying like 220, 300 something bucks, like all the time. Right. Like, it's just like, I, I was like, geez, that's, that's like 30,

[00:44:02] like 50, 60% of my pickleball budget, like blown out the door rate there just for paddles. Definitely. So I don't know that. So anyway, I, we don't, we don't know how those company is going to do. Are they going to join force? Are they going to, are they, are they going to fight Yola separately? We don't, we don't know. Some parts, I listened to some of the part. There's actually not great,

[00:44:31] that big of an incentive have all those company to join force, to, to actually, actually fight Yola. It's actually a better, you know, them fighting Yola separately because they have, all those company have their, like basically design their paddle differently. Right. So they're therefore, therefore, therefore fighting them individually is actually causing Yola more, more money and time, more time consuming because now they have to fight them one,

[00:45:01] one, one at a time versus. And if, yeah. And if you're a smaller company, you might be like, Oh yeah, I'm going to go individually. Cause they might be so focused on the bigger guys. They kind of leave mine alone for a bit. Right. So, yeah, exactly. So that, so that's, I think that's, that's a plan. They, they kind of go going against them. Uh, we haven't heard much, uh, about, about, uh, afterwards. So it usually takes at least like a year and year and a half, uh, to, to, to find out,

[00:45:31] uh, what's the outcome of it. So it's not anytime soon. And if it's a year and year and a half, Gen three might not be readily, even anymore, but maybe we might be Gen five already, especially with how the, the paddle technology has been, um, exploding. Uh, these, these days they've been changing constantly. Yeah, exactly. Right. Hey everyone. We want to give a big shout out to one of our sponsors, cling pickleball compression,

[00:45:58] where they're a Canadian based company that is made specifically for pickleball players by pickleball players. I personally love their compression socks. I use them all the time when I'm in tournaments. However, they are also the designers of the C and PL Northern lights jerseys, which you can get at their shop. Irene also loves their, uh, ladies compression tops. And she wears those when she plays in the tournaments as well as the socks as well. So head on over to clean pickleball.com and check out what they got in stock for you. Back to the episode.

[00:46:28] So moving on, we have a fair bit with, uh, pickleball Canada. They've done some good things. Uh, well, I'm going to say most of this is super positive and there's little nitpicks I have with, uh, some of the stuff, but I was like, it's good, but not, not enough. Yeah. Like the one thing I is, is really good. The other one is good, but I think they fell short of the line that they could have gone to type of thing. So the first one we're going to talk about is pickball Canada just announced a national league pilot project.

[00:46:59] So basically you create a league team in your club and now you can, if you're have a huge club, you can create multiple teams and they all play each other. And basically at the end of a certain amount of time, one team comes out as the top team. And that represents the club in like a regionals. So for example, for here in Alberta, for example, I live in zone eight. I think Vic, you live in like zone five or three or something like that right now, something around there. But like, for example, in my zone in zone eight, there's only two clubs.

[00:47:29] There's my club and then there's grand Prairie. Right. So realistically, if we want to create a team from my club and my club is so small, you could really realistically only create one team, that team within playground Prairie interregionals. And then we would be the zone eight representatives. We'd go to the equivalent of a provincial event. If that team, whatever team wins that provincial event, then represents Alberta on the national stage. Nice. Now, the way this is, uh, we're, uh,

[00:47:56] the way this is done up is basically you have different divisions. They have like a category, B category, C category, I think all the way down to D, a category is basically your four or five to like five. Oh, and then the max a player can be is I think five. Oh, tops. Like they can't be any higher than that. So this is clearly amateur centric. Um, the other stipulation they put in with this. So in each category, you have two males, two females. However, one of each has to be over 50.

[00:48:25] So you're basically playing, you're basically playing split age category. So your men's team would be a 50 year old and then a sub 50 year old, or at least that would be the ideal. You can have two 50 year olds if that's what you have at your club. But basically you're doing a job, a split age, uh, genders and then your mixed teams can be whatever. So you could have the two younger people play together, the two older people play together. So that's your A, your B would be like your four Oh to like four or five type of thing. Then your C would be like your three,

[00:48:54] five to four and all the way down from there. And so basically you have all the way from a to D and that's your entire team. So very similar to how at nationals they're doing the team, uh, the provincial team events where you have your open division, your senior division, they play another province. And then it's the combined totals of all those games on the, the men's doubles, men's singles, women's doubles, women's singles, mixed all that. The points total there is how a team has decided the winner. So the same thing works with this.

[00:49:24] Your A division can win, but then if your B, B, C and D divisions lose, your team's not going to win. Gotcha. Type of thing like that. Right. So, uh, this is launching, this year, it's going to be over, uh, it's basically a 12 week season. Um, they say at the conclusion of the seasons, the, the club will select the team to represent their club in the inter club competition. So basically the regionals slash provincials. Um, and yeah, so yeah, what, so yeah, I have the full breakdown here.

[00:49:53] So the inter club championship will feature head to head matchups between teams consisting of two rounds, one round of gender doubles, one round of mixed doubles, the results of these 16 matches. So like I said, a, B, C, D, A, B, C, D. Yeah, that's four 16 matches throughout there. Cause you got men's and women's on both. We'll determine the score for the final, uh, scrabble team game where gender doubles and teams rotate in and out. The pathway will ultimately lead to a national club championship where the

[00:50:21] top club team in Canada will be crowned. So key timelines, local club Lee plays to begin no later than June. Regional club championships are mid August for provincial club championships are going to be September. And then the nationals will be in October. Hmm. Um, and to, to be a participant in this, you basically have to be a registered members of a,

[00:50:48] a pickleball Canada and take part in an part in a local club. So it doesn't matter where, uh, where you look at like, for example, Edmonton has what, like four different clubs or something like that, or five around at least. Yeah. Yeah. So as long as you're a member of one of those clubs, you can be a representative for one of those clubs type of thing. Now this has only just been announced in the last week or so. Um, so the whole, uh, I think they're reaching out to all the clubs via like they're getting the provincial, um,

[00:51:17] organizations to reach out to the clubs, see which clubs would want to participate and things like that. But this is very good because not only does it create another form of competition play, but it also creates competition in clubs. Oh yeah. Right. So like a, like, so a big club, for example, like if we take, for example, the Calgary pickleball club, which has like 3000 members. Yeah. Right. Yes. Majority of those players are probably just wreck. However,

[00:51:43] this then makes that club create days or certain like weekends or whatever, where, Hey, you want to be part of it, part of this thing that we're doing now you can go play. And this is going to be super competitive. And the winners get to basically represent our club on at bare minimum at the regional and then provincial level. If our club wins, then we go on to represent the province. Right. So this is the one where I think they're starting it a little bit quick.

[00:52:11] Like they only announced it a couple of weeks ago and already you should have, technically you should already be semi started or like, but they want you basically, they want the in club stuff to be done by June. Cause they want provincial stuff or the regional stuff come August. Yeah. Right. So that seems a little rush. Yeah. Now. And like they said, it's a pilot program. So I can, I can see this year being kind of like the test run and then they have a better kind of organized in the years to come.

[00:52:39] But the fact that they're even doing this is us is a super positive thing. Right. Like I said, definitely a good step up from what it was before basically. Yeah. And like the split age thing, like it, it, it, um, uh, continues to involve like, you know, the 50 plus categories, it keeps the younger ones coming in. So like you could literally have one team that has like a 60 year old and a 16 year old on the team type of thing. Right. Like it's,

[00:53:06] it's one of those things where it's not like I could see probably in say a couple of years, they have a senior division and like an open division, but for now doing the split age thing also creates kind of like a, uh, kind of like a balance thing. So that way say like, for example, our club and peace river is mostly 45 plus age, right? Like I'm one of the younger people in the club and I'm going to be 39 this year. Right.

[00:53:35] So for our club, I don't, we don't really have a choice. Like for example, if we want to do like the a category, it would probably be me, Irene, and probably like Chris and Nicole would be our four or five group. And there's not really any other four or five females to play. With Irene, who are, who are over 50. We don't have, we don't have another four. We don't have another like four Oh four or five over, um, uh, to play to who's over 50 to play. Same thing. You dropped, you dropped, I could,

[00:54:03] I could actually just go through our club and almost pick our team because like we're all, we're a club that only has about 68, 70 members. Yeah. You have a small club. So, and only so many of those members go to tournaments. Cause that's the other thing you have to want to be competitive and go to tournaments to be part of this. Right. So that's true. So smaller clubs, smaller clubs, it's a little bit harder or like you don't really have to do the inner club thing. Cause you're probably just going to pick your cream of the crop because those are the ones who, those are the only ones who go to tournaments. Anyways, for bigger clubs, like a bunch of the bigger clubs in Edmonton,

[00:54:33] in Calgary, even in red deer, you're going to have to do that inter club competition to decide who's actually going to represent the club. Yeah. Right. And then regionals on top of that, obviously certain regions have more clubs. So you're going to have more competition. Like I said, for my region in zone eight, there's only two clubs. So it's literally my club versus GP and whoever wins represents the zone. Right. So it's, I know it's just one of the, it's just one of those things. But like I said, it's there. I like the regional thing too,

[00:55:01] because you're getting into kind of like what schools do and colleges do. Right. Where it's, you have provincials, but the provincials are the, are people who have won the zones and are the zone representatives of that particular region. Right. So this is a good step in the right direction. It's creating more competition and more events for players who want to go to competitions. Cause like we said, we're the biggest problem we're having in Alberta right now is now that everyone's had their taste of indoor,

[00:55:28] a lot of the outdoor tournaments are suffering because of it. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Right. Cause like you look at, for example, our best example is the Spruce Grove season opener. That used to be, if you didn't sign up within three hours of registration open, you weren't getting in because they had to cap it. Right. Now there's only like, I think they're not even over a hundred yet, or they might just have barely, they might just have barely crossed a hundred people signed up. Whereas before that was like 300 within the first three hours. And if you didn't get in, you didn't get in. To be honest with you,

[00:55:58] if you play in an indoor facility before, you don't want to play outdoors anymore. To be honest with you. No. Like I like playing outdoors here in peace because, but that's the only time I'm going to get the true bounce. Yeah. But that's more so like, I'm using it for drilling. I'm using it for like competitive wreck. But if I'm doing a tournament now, I just want to do indoors. Cause then I don't have to work. Like I said, don't have to worry about rain. Don't have to worry about rain, all that stuff. Right. Outdoors is still fun, but now it's, that's going to, the outdoors is now going to be purely almost wreck.

[00:56:28] Well, type of play. The outdoors also, the other, there's a lot of what we call unpredictable element. And, and that's tough, right. For, for, for the, for, for outdoors. And especially as a tournament organizer, we have been organizing tournament indoors. Already. Indoors. Sometimes there, there, there is like a stuff happen and then you need to, you need to be able to adjust on the fly. And if you're doing outdoors,

[00:56:56] you have to even think about the weather on top of that. Oh my God. Wow. It's exactly. It just, it eliminates a lot of factors that you don't have to worry about when it's indoors. Yeah, definitely. And just to convene, the other thing is the convenience being indoors, right? The, there's no, there's no smoke, there's no rain, there's no wind. You're playing almost in the ideal condition all the time. Right. So where, yeah. We're, especially in Edmonton, we're so fortunate to have so many courts. And,

[00:57:26] uh, in, in, in here, like, uh, what in September, I think there's how many courts are going to open another 20, 26 court is going to open, open in Edmonton. So on top of Spruce Grove, another 14. So how many? So means, uh, 40 courts, almost 40, 40, four zero indoor courts. It's going to open in, uh, yeah. So, so yeah. So like I said,

[00:57:56] this is a great step forward. Um, I don't really have any notes on this. Like, yes, like it, like I said, it feels a little rushed this year, but it is the pilot. it is a pilot project. Normally pilot projects are a little bit rushed because they're still trying to figure out how everything is going to flow and work. Plus you're trying to do this country wide. So different provinces operate on different schedules because of weather, right? Like B, BC is a lot, BC and Ontario. A lot of times are able to get their clubs and especially if they're summer clubs,

[00:58:26] get those started up a lot earlier than something, someplace in like Northern Alberta or like, or PEI or, or, or in Newfoundland, right? Because of weather, right? Especially, especially if you don't have indoor courts to use. Well, they like most of the time, like the smaller community have just wreck, uh, wreck center, right? Yeah, exactly. Right. So, but like I said, this is nothing but, but good news for this, uh, for this part of, uh, what, one of the things that pickleball Canada has announced.

[00:58:55] So I'm super looking forward to it. Hopefully our club can, uh, get in on this and, uh, then I can give a better, uh, a better recap on it at the end of the year. Um, as someone who hopefully has played through the, played through the system and like, what can, we can look at stuff. Oh, this went, this part worked really well. This part needs, you know, some fine tuning and stuff like that. But if we can get it going and get through the first year of it, then you know what works, what doesn't work, what this need, what needs to be adjusted. And maybe, uh,

[00:59:24] set a different timetable. If this particular timetable didn't work for it. Yeah. Just to fine tune it. So at least they get, get something going because there's nothing off offering the cup. And sorry for saying this way. I felt like the club was slow. Like a lot of pickleball clubs were slowly dying. Uh, because, uh, especially, especially the biggest city area, because, the club was not, they're, they're just either growing too big or either they,

[00:59:54] they, they couldn't, uh, accommodate all the players to, to play in their clubs anymore and just neglect some, uh, some of, uh, some of the rec players. So they just basically, those players just, uh, did their own group and never joined the club anymore. Right. So now having those, uh, organized, uh, organized interclub will hopefully, hopefully incentivize those, uh, those players to come back and join, join the club. Exactly. Yeah. And it gives,

[01:00:24] gives another reason to also, uh, join Pickleball Canada. So not only, just like what you said, used to say before, like before it was, you know, so you could get, get in for certain things, you know, it covers like, you know, uh, waivers and insurance and stuff when you go play in tournaments. Well, now this is being run by Pickleball Canada. So if you take part in it, not only does it help the club cover that insurance stuff, um, it also promotes people like, okay, I can go play in this. And because of the insurance thing, I don't have to worry about, you know,

[01:00:52] if I accidentally hurt myself competing in this. So it, it builds that foundation to help keep club, keep clubs, like you said, from kind of dying off. And also, like I said, promotes interclub competition. So you want your club to get better. So then your club can actually compete against other clubs. So what, how we used to say before, how there was sometimes it got a little clicky and lower players didn't want to play or higher players didn't want to play with lower players. Well, now you want those lower players to develop so they can be part of your team. So you can go compete against other clubs. Right. Yeah.

[01:01:21] It also create like, uh, fun rivalries, uh, especially with clubs that are a little bit closer together, like a bunch of the clubs that are in Edmonton that are literally like, if you're talking about what they're, where their headquarters are, they're literally within like 10, 15 kilometers of each other. Yep. You can basically walk almost. Well, yeah. What's a little too much, probably drive. Yeah. But like, but, but yeah, so it just creates that friendly competition. Right. So like that's, that's something that's going to help grow the sport. Like it's a good step in the right direction. Everybody,

[01:01:50] we want to give a shout out to our sponsor Tyrell pickleball. I'm holding their velocity V shoe right here. It's the orange and teal one. It's awesome. And I love this using this on the court. So for a pickleball shoe that delivers stability, breathability, comfort, and durability, head over to tyrellpickleball.com and enter a gorman 20 at checkout to get 20% off your order. We want to give Tyrell a big shout out. Thank you so much for supporting us. Better grip, better balance, better game designed for the way pickleball is actually played.

[01:02:20] Back to the episode. All right. And then the other thing that pickleball Canada has announced is their inaugural high performance program. So yeah, this is a good thing because this is basically promoting pro players in the country. Now we'll here, I'll read off the kind of the, the little blurb that they announced, and then we'll kind of get into the gist of it here. So starting this year,

[01:02:48] pickleball can will establish its national player development pool, making the first step towards forming an official team Canada, for the sport of pickleball. Pickleball's first national team pool will include a minimum of 10 women and 10 men, plus junior contingent of eight individuals split equally by gender. So basically four and four participants will be selected via multitude of events. This tournament season with the first event taking place at the Steve Deacon pick ball, major league pick a ball that the MILP combine or the MLP combine that he's hosting in Calgary

[01:03:18] on May 15th and 17th. Yeah. Uh, the further sections will take place during the 2026 national championships. Winners of the open event, uh, event categories throughout the week will each earn individual spots in the development pool, uh, with four women and four men being selected through this pathway. Six junior players will also be selected during the event. Additionally, provincial team competition players. So players who play on the provincial teams, uh, will be utilized as scout as a scouting opportunity where players will,

[01:03:48] uh, be evaluated to determine their fit into the national program. The remaining spots of the program will be selected by pick ball can, a high performance task team in September through a selection process related to the results of these and other events. Development camps will be held in the fall, which will involve high level coaching experience and supplement medication and diet player development, um, and sports psychology. The eligibility include, you know, you must have participated in at least two pick ball Canada sanctioned events in 2026.

[01:04:18] You must be in good standing with pick ball Canada. You must be a resident of Canada within the national championship guidelines. Um, and this is with the intent to form their first official team Canada in, uh, 2027. Um, so this is good. Yes. First of all, this is a good thing. Um, they're promoting, they're promoting, um, um, high level player development. Um,

[01:04:48] Steve Deacon's a great, uh, a great starting point there to, uh, to use one of the, uh, one of our most successful Canadian players ever. Mm hmm. Um, one issue I have with this is you already have, uh, a bunch of pro players who now, because of the crappy scheduling by pick up all Canada, not working with the CNPL won't be attending nationals this year.

[01:05:16] So just going by their own categories on this, you're going to have a watered down pool of these player develop of these players in this development pool. Oh, because none of our top pros are going to be there. And all of our pros would probably greatly appreciate being part of this, um, being part of this process. Like think about being able to, uh, work with other coaches, you know, education and diet player development and sports psychology,

[01:05:43] having access to that is a massive win for any player. Mm hmm. But like we said, the pro and we mentioned this on a previous, on one of our previous podcasts is when they first announced when nationals were, um, not working with the CNPL, which is home to all of the major pros in Canada, like all of them, the big name pros in Canada, not working with them and not, you know,

[01:06:12] at least making it so that you weren't not, uh, crossing over with now pros, not being able to attend the nationals. Yeah. Is a massive misstep on pickleball Canada's part. And you can't tell me that it's not majority pickleball Canada's fault because members of CNPL and the MILP group, uh, led by, uh, UEC Lau have reached out to pickleball Canada work to try and work with them.

[01:06:41] To help promote the team Canada that is going to be sent to the pickleball world cup this year and the previous year. Mm hmm. So this is on pickleball Canada. You are the bigger organization. You are supposed to be the national representative of this country. The fact that you have not been working with the CNPL or working in somewhat with the CNPL to get the pro players that we do have. This type of help is on you. Like I said,

[01:07:11] this whole idea is awesome. Um, the problem is, is you are not going far enough and not working with the pro league that we have in Canada to work with these players for this development. Because just going by these stipulations right now. So unless these pro players go to the Steve Deacon thing. So you'll get a few of our CNPL pros probably go to that, uh, this coming weekend. Because by the time when this episode pops out, it'll probably be roughly the 15th. Yeah. And they,

[01:07:41] they wouldn't have, I don't think the, uh, conflict with the CNPL, uh, the next split anyway. Right. No, the next split is the 23rd and 24th. So this is the weekend in between. Yeah. So it's not going to conflict for sure. so, but the, the big thing with that is, so yeah, you might have a couple of pros, uh, some of our pros go to that, but it's probably going to be mostly the Western pros. Yeah. If we're, if we're being honest, you might have a couple of, of the, um, um, the Eastern ones, uh, fly out for this.

[01:08:11] Well, at the same time, I will say the, the, Hmm. How can I say that? Uh, unfortunately the registration was not very good. I think, uh, maybe the word was not out enough or, I don't know. Uh, or maybe some, some pros are a little bit, um, on defense of, of trying that. I don't know. Uh, that's well. And when, and when was the event? Cause I know that it was to go to like the grand rapid, um, ML,

[01:08:40] the MLP grand rapids. Yeah. What's the, what's the date for that? Let me, let me check quickly. MLP grand rapid. 2026. So while, so while Vic is looking that up, that's the, this season is the July to July, uh, 12th. Let's see if there's any conflict. Nope. No, there's not. It's the weekend before the metropolitan split. Okay. Yeah. So, so technically our CMPL pros could go to that. Um,

[01:09:09] so the other problem is a lot of the pros, um, due to, uh, time constrictions don't go to provincial championships. Yeah. And for example, this year, half of the Alberta pros aren't going to go because the Alberta provincials are the same time as the, uh, metropolitan split. So for example, Brad Chapman can come because his team isn't playing in the metropolitan split, but Kim Layton can't come because her team is playing in the metropolitan split. So on, uh,

[01:09:38] already now Kim Layton, one of the best female pros in Canada can't make provincials and can't make nationals. Yeah. So automatically that makes her now ineligible to be part of this player pool because there's not very many other Canada sanctioned events that she can go, that she will normally go to. Right. So like, like I said, the, the, this whole idea is a great idea. The problem is,

[01:10:07] is you are not working with our current pros that need this. Yeah. Like I said, if you're, and if you're using the, uh, nationals as so people who win the open at nationals this year, so, um, four men and four women are selected through that pathway. That is going to be a very watered down point. And that is not an insult to people who are playing in the open this year. Cause these are all very good players. However,

[01:10:35] I think we're getting what three pros there, like three high, like maybe three high level pros at best who have, who weren't selected into the CNPL. If we're being realistic. Cause like the last time I looked at the open division at the nationals, I think I recognize three names of like people who are actually were pros. Ouch. Like, like, like known pros who, who have played in like the CNPL before. Yeah, I know.

[01:11:04] Right. So we're, we're talking about, this is the open division. This is, and you're going to be picking now, uh, uh, players for a development pool to represent team Canada in 2027 at some type of international event, but you're automatically going to exclude our upper echelon of pro players right off the bat, because you were unwilling to work with the CNPL and work with, um, UE and, uh,

[01:11:34] and Ricky and them with the current, uh, now they've tagged themselves the unofficial official team Canada. Yeah. I saw, I saw, I saw that who are going to the world cup this year. Yeah. Which is sad because you're like, it is because, because I'll be able to tell you right now, if they don't do something to work with that, the team, the team that represents Canada this year at the world cup, we'll be able to stop the shit out of the team Canada that pickleball Canada is going to select.

[01:12:05] Yeah. Because if you think about, so let's, let's see who's, who's, who's going to realistically be on team Canada, the world cup this year, more than likely Ernesto, um, possibly Matthew Catambo, Brad Chapman, like any of those type of players, Kim Layton, Anna, Deschenko, Christina Chin, because there's no cap this year. There's no 5.5 cap, right? So, and any level. Oh,

[01:12:27] so basically think of an all-star team from the CNPL is basically going to be team Canada this year going to the world cup. I'm sorry. Nobody who's making that pool from the rule stipulated by pickleball Canada here is going to be able to hold a candle to that team. Cause you're, you're literally like, you could literally take like, like I, if, if we get asked to be on the selection committee this year,

[01:12:55] it's going to be so hard because it is literally, you are picking an all-star team. Yeah, definitely. And like with very limited spots. Oh yeah. Right. Like you could literally send almost two team Canada's to this world cup with how many insanely good players we have. Right. And, but the problem is, is all that pool of players that are going to be on team Canada this year, half of them aren't going to be able to,

[01:13:19] or 90% of them aren't going to be able to technically by this rules laid out by pickleball Canada are not going to be able to qualify to be in that development pool for the team, for their team Canada in 2027. Unless, unless they play some, whatever, unless they start, unless they start making exceptions for them. Right. Which I don't think they'll do. Cause we've seen, uh, we've seen it happen with, pickleball Canada, uh, last year and some of the provincial, uh,

[01:13:48] provincial teams last year, where there was a conflict between some of the government, Marine batteries and one of the pro players. And that pro player didn't end up being on the provincial team. Mm. Right. So it's just, this is like such a good idea. And like, it's frustrating. Cause I'm like, this is such a good idea. It's such a good plan. But the fact that you're not working with the CNPL, like the fact that pickleball Canada is not some type of,

[01:14:15] at least in name sponsor or like a co-operator with the CNPL is mind blowing to me. This is the fourth season. This thing has been in, it's growing and growing, growing to the point where now they're literally looking. There's so many good players who aren't in the league this year because there's not enough teams. They're trying to find owners, especially in Western Canada. Oh yeah. Right. Like the fact that pickleball Canada is not backing this is freaking ridiculous.

[01:14:46] Yeah. I don't, I don't know. I don't, I don't know the, the, what was the backstory or whatever, but at least, at least, at least they need, they need to try to work with each other because like, at bare minimum, at bare minimum promote it. I don't like, even if you're not going to be some type of like, like monetary sponsor, like the fact that this has all happened, I've promoted the CNPL more than pickleball Canada has. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean?

[01:15:15] Like the fact that pickleball Canada is not even saying, Oh, Hey, this is going on right now in Toronto at the pickler. Hmm. You should come watch some of our great Canadian pros play. Yeah. Pickleball Canada doesn't even touch it. Doesn't even acknowledge that it's happening. And it goes with the same thing. The nationals are being held the same week that the CNPL season finale is. The season finale for the CNPL was scheduled in November of 2025. The nationals were scheduled in February of this year.

[01:15:44] I know. So that's November, December, January, February was the time difference between, when this was scheduled. So they have plenty of time, basically plenty of time to be like, Oh, all of our pros aren't going to be able to make it. Okay. Let's move it by a week. Like do it the weekend before you could have competed with the PPA, to be honest with you. And you still would have gotten majority of the pros going to nationals. Yeah, I know. Right. Cause the PPA,

[01:16:12] the PPA Vancouver would have been like, okay, a lot of the Western pros will probably go to that, but all the Eastern pros would be like, man, I'm going to go play at nationals. Hmm. You know what I mean? But even so, the PPA just changed. They, they, they push it to September now, right? Because of the world cup. So it doesn't matter. So now that we, so now that weekend is free anyways, but it's just like, it doesn't make sense that you're not promoting a local, if we want to say local,

[01:16:41] local pro league with the best pros in Canada, playing with it, playing in it. And like I said, everything that I said in this, in this release statement by pickball Canada, I love every single bit of it. The fact that we're creating this development pool, we're going to like, they're going to have high level coaching. They're going to have development camps, you know, education on diet, player development, sports psychology, all that stuff. That's awesome. But then you throw in these stipulations where it's like, Oh,

[01:17:10] you have to compete at, you have to compete at nationals. You have to compete at, or at provincials or at bare minimum, at least one other major Canada sanctioned event. But then, but because we are, but we're not going to work with the pro league in Canada, where majority of our pros play. So now they're going to be uneligible for this team Canada thing. Yeah. Which is ridiculous. I don't, I, I don't, I have no words for that. I don't,

[01:17:39] I don't know what, what, what to say is. And like you said, it has been four years already. Why, why, why don't you work with CNPL? I could see if it was year one, if this was year one and you had no idea what CNPL was. Yeah. Sure. I could see maybe being hesitant to like team up with them. Okay. Let's kind of see how season one plays out. See if they're the real deal. And then maybe we'll jump on board in year two. Kind of treat it like a pilot program type of thing. Exactly. But this is season four.

[01:18:10] It's proven around for four. It's been around for four years. All the best pro players in Canada play in this league. I know your literal back-to-back national champion plays on the team. Previous multiple national champions play in this league. Like before, before Ernesto started dominating, it was like Brad Chapman and Kim Layton. Guess what? They both play in this league. Previous, previous national champions, like, uh, like Christina Chin, Anna Deschenko.

[01:18:40] They play in this league. Like, all of the people who have consistently won at the open division in the past four years are in this league. I know. You're like, literal, every national champion in every division last year is on a team this year. The women's singles national champion is on a team. The men's singles national champion is on a team. The mixed doubles national champions are on a team. The men's doubles national champions are on a team. The women's doubles national champions are on a team.

[01:19:10] Yeah, like I said, I have no words. I don't know what, what to, what to say at this point. Yeah, it's just, it's frustrating. Like I said, this is such a good idea, but the fact that you're not working with the CMPL and with, um, the world cup, uh, team is, is, they like you, it was like you had a layup and just before you're about to lay it in, for some reason, you turn your hand around and then you slam it off the backboard and it goes back to the other side of the court. Or like you,

[01:19:40] or as you're about to go for the lip, you trip and fall. Like it was, or like if you want to use a hockey term, you had a wide open empty net and for some reason, you rung it off the post. Right. But we're all, a worst. Yeah, exactly. Right. But it's just, it's like such a good idea. And it's just, you're just falling short. It's very, very frustrating. And like, and I, and I know that a collaboration is both parties, but I'm sorry,

[01:20:10] the bigger party has to be the one make, helping make it work. Yeah. Like I said, like even the, like I said, even the bare minimum of just promoting it. Like just for, it's free, it's free to promote. Yeah. All you have to do is like, and you don't even have to do anything, make anything special on socials. You literally just have to share something that the CMPL has already posted. Yeah. I know, but that's right.

[01:20:39] Like I'm still amazed, like how many people I run into in like Edmonton and like Red Deer who don't know what the CMPL are because it's not promoted by Pickleball Canada. Yeah, I know. Like, I'm like, dude, I believe it. Cause people ask me, Oh, you do a podcast. What about, I'm like, Oh, mostly the CMPL. What's the CMPL? I'm like, it's the pro league here in Canada. That's been on for like the past four years, but they don't know because it's not being promoted. But I was like, and we have like,

[01:21:08] there's a local from your, like this, I had a conversation like this in Red Deer with someone that's actually, it was, I had a conversation with someone at the APA about the CMPL who didn't know what the CMPL was. And half of the pro players playing there were in the CMPL. Oh man. Like someone said, Oh, who's this guy? I'm like, Oh, that's Ben Davis. He's on like the Northern Lights this year. He's from the States. Oh, what's the Northern Lights? I'm like, the pro team at the CMPL that Joel plays on your local pro coach is on that team.

[01:21:39] It's like, Oh, I didn't know that. I'm like, Oh, and it's because they don't like, yeah. Like, cause unless you already follow the CMPL on Instagram, or if you've like followed me or Vic and found it via that way. Right. Yeah. And I, and me and Vic don't have that big of a reach. Neither of us are even over a thousand followers on any of our social platforms. So no, we're not, I guess you can maybe, but maybe on Facebook, I'm over a thousand, but most of those are like family and friends type of thing. Not quite the same thing. No, it's not right. But, um, we do. Yeah.

[01:22:08] So this is the thing. Like, could you imagine if, if pickleball Canada just shared this like two or three times during a CMPL event, how many more eyes than would get on the CMPL? Yeah, for sure. And how many more eyes would get on these pro players? There's, Oh, it's live on YouTube on the game plus channel. And both courts are live stream. And it's, and there's commentary like, Holy crap. And there's multiple views. And on court one, there's replays. Like, I know like, and,

[01:22:37] and people will be jumping onto it because right now I will say people like, Oh, who's our local, who's our pro in Canada? Who's our pro in Canada? And then like, yes. Okay. PPA is much better. Like, uh, they have much better player. They have like those big star player, but at the same time, like, okay, who are our Canadian player? And I will say for our national pride, there will be quite a bit of our Canadians. Inspen, telespectator will be choosing,

[01:23:06] watching CNPL over PPA. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. If as Canadians, we are nothing, if not proud, like, look how well the CBL does in Canada. That's the Canadian elite basketball league, which is basically now become like a farm league for the NBA. Nice. Mark Cuban just bought into the honey badgers. There you go. Right? Like, I think it's the honey badgers. I apologize if I got the team name wrong. You have to double, check. You have to, I'd have to double check,

[01:23:36] but, uh, but no, yeah, Mark Cuban just bought steak in one of the teams in this, in the CBL. Right. So it's just like, and for those of you who don't know who Mark Cuban is, he used to own the Dallas Mavericks. Yeah. Well, and he's, he's also on a, what? Shark tanks. Yeah. And he's on shark. He's on the U S version of shark tank. Absolutely. But, um, but yeah, so it's like, and,

[01:23:58] but just look at how well that has blown up with the amount of coverage it receives because basketball Canada promotes it. There you go. Because it's all of our local players are playing in there. And the whole reason why it's played in the summer is because all of our Canadian like pro players who don't play in the NBA, who play overseas during winter, during the regular season, get to come back to Canada and play in their locally in the, like the local or national league. So they get to play about high level basketball all year round. I know.

[01:24:28] Literally what the C, like the kind of what the CMPL does. The CMPL is, you know, like the beginning of this month, all the way to September. And then you still have, then our pros are still able to go down to the U S basically becoming, becoming snowbirds and playing a bunch of those winter tournaments that would be, you know, snow covered here in Canada. But, you know, you go down to Arizona or Texas and you're playing in like beautiful, like sunshine outdoors. Right. And training and training and training down there. Right. So it's just PPs. Yeah. Like this is such a good idea.

[01:24:57] Like there's like going back to it. It's such a good idea. And they have just dropped the ball. The fact that they are not working with the CMPL, they're not working with the world, the world cup team. And basically they're icing out our already established pro players. Or even like our development players, like for example, Jacob and McConnor, we have two 16 year olds in the CMPL right now who are literally like, benefit insanely from this. Right.

[01:25:27] It's just, it's just sad. But right now the two of them have to balance between school at, between school and whether or not they can go to like a PPA event because, can their parents afford that? Where if you have the backing of like Pickleball Canada to at least help out with something with that. Right. And then supply coaches and supply development and stuff. Even, even so it's going to be a question of a question, question mark. I feel like it's still a question mark, even though they say, Oh, we're going to have a, uh,

[01:25:57] that team of, uh, development pools. Like, well, at the same time, are they already using those coach already? I don't know. No, I know. But, but for example, if, if, if Candace, if Pickleball Canada is flipping the bill and you don't have to pay for it. Yeah, that's true. Right. That's the bill. Obviously. Yeah. Yeah. But that's what, but that's what I mean. Like it's, and I, and I want to know who's on this high performance task team in September. Who's going to pick the rest of these players? Uh, I don't know. I'm like, if you're not, if you're not,

[01:26:27] if you're not. And like I said, the fact, the fact that you're using this eligibility thing because, and it's, you're, like I said, you're screwing over our pros because of the, your eligibility process and the fact that you're not working with the CMPL. So now you're automatically icing out all of our major pros. Yeah. Right. It's, I know it's, it's, it's frustrating. So I think, I think I flipped out enough about that. I think that, I think that that's the, I think, I think everyone got, got the message, but yeah. Yeah. Hopefully,

[01:26:57] hopefully, uh, I think it's a good thing. They, they got Steve Deacon involved, uh, absolutely into that, uh, get into the, uh, the MLT teams because, uh, uh, we talked to Steve. Steve is, uh, is a great guy and he always want, want to help the pros. And if you listen to my, interview with him, that he, like he, his goal of, uh, starting the next, starting to cut the coaching program is to try to help the pros that grow in Canada. So they don't have to travel to the state as much to,

[01:27:26] to be able, able to support, um, yeah, get some money, money to, to help, help them out. Because otherwise it's, to be honest with you, it's tough being a pro in, in, in Canada. Like, like, it's like that you have to travel, you have, you have to get sponsorship. And at the end of the day, you might not even break even, to be honest with, with you for, for some of the pros. I feel sad like, um, to, for some of,

[01:27:53] some of our pros having to deal with all those, those financial burden, while our, our government body should be helping out those high performance pro. And those are not even just like, people were just thinking, oh, they're just pro or whatever, but a lot of our amateur player look like, or junior player looks up to someone, right? Like, uh, for example, myself, when I was playing tennis,

[01:28:23] I look up to, uh, to, to a pro. I look up to, uh, Rafael, like Rafael Nadal was my idol, uh, uh, of tennis. And I, I play, I, so that's why I emulate to play like him. I try to play, play, play like him. Right. And then while getting into that 10, 10, Canada quite, quite a bit. Okay. Now I know, oh, who is that Daniel Nestor? Who, who, who, who, who is like, now we have the Felix Oje, Aliasim. We have the, uh,

[01:28:52] then Dennis Shachapov, those become like the, the ambassador of basically your, uh, your, your organization. So same, if you, you're able to do it with, uh, with Canada and Estel, Christina Chin, or, or like, uh, the, the younger, uh, the younger folks like Jacob, uh, McCona, McCona, all those folks become the ambassador for your Pickleball Canada, like without even trying, without having to like label them as ambassador.

[01:29:22] People will, will look up to, oh, I want to play like an Estel. Oh, I want to play like Jacob. Oh, I want to play like, uh, uh, like Christina. Oh, I want to play like Kim. Well, there, there you go. That's how, how you grow the sport. You need, you need, you need to showcase those pro for, to incentivize our up and coming player to look up to them. But yeah, that's, that's what I'm going to say. Yeah, exactly.

[01:29:52] All right. So we will end it there. I think we went a pretty decent length there, Vic, uh, ranting and raving as usual, especially about Pickleball Canada. Yes. There's a reason, there's a reason why they don't name us for ambassadors. Uh, yeah, that's a, that's a big, big, big reason. We are, uh, we, we talk too much and we post too much. Yeah, exactly. Compared, compared to some of their ambassadors. Sorry, I'm taking a shot at them right away. But anyway,

[01:30:18] so we will be back in about a week and a half time because the, uh, CNPL is going to keep right on rolling. So they are back up and running. Um, the Western split is going to be on May 23rd and 24th in Windsor. And that's going to feature the, uh, Vancouver Owls, the Northern Lights, the drive and the Rapids. So only four teams playing in that one. So it's only going to be a single court. Once again, all on game plus. Nice. Um, I would know I won't be able to, uh, broadcast that one.

[01:30:48] And I think you're still going to be out of town, uh, in Orlando for the beginning of that anyways, at least. I come back on to 23rd, uh, middle of the night, man, like kind of like, yeah, so night, So like, uh, 24, not going to be sure I'll be able to commentate. Yeah. So we'll, we'll probably have to skip that one, but we're going to, uh, try to keep ourselves available at least for a couple more times. We did get to commentate for two games. Uh, this past weekend at the, uh,

[01:31:17] the season opener, which was really fun. Um, but, uh, I've already booked myself off for the, um, championship weekend. So I'm, I got all three days off cause I booked it way ahead in advance. Nice. It's not, it hasn't been announced where it is yet, but the rumor mill is that it's going to be somewhat close to home. Uh, yeah, somewhat close to, to your home, but to my home at that point, it won't be your home anymore, but that's all. That's all. I'm so, that's also, that's also a, uh,

[01:31:47] a little Selena's birthday weekend. So I don't think you'd be doing it anyways if it was close to home. So yeah. Well, no, if it was close to close to home, I just bring her to, to that. True. Yeah. Do, do a birthday party right at, right on the court. Right. Like, so, right. Exactly. So, but now it's like, oh my God, why, why, why I'm going east and now you're going back west. What the heck's going on? Yeah. So that's not confirmed yet, but there's a high probability that it's going to be, like I said, close to home. Um, at least for me.

[01:32:17] so yeah. So, but, so yeah, up next May 23rd and 24th, the Western split, then June 6th and 7th is the Eastern split. And that's going to be in London. Oh no, sorry. No, it's not. The Eastern split is actually going to be at the Atlantic pickball club in PEI. Oh yeah. PEI. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they switch, they switch that. Um, so yeah, so that's it for us for this episode. Like I said, we'll probably, we'll do our next episode. We'll probably be the recap of the Western split. So we'll have lots to talk about there. And then of course,

[01:32:45] I need other news that pops up in this next week. Uh, but yeah, you got two episodes this week. You had the recap, uh, last episode, and then you have, uh, this one. So we, two for one deal this week and then only a week and a half wait until our next episode. So we're getting right into the thick of it and get ready for lots more episodes and a lot more content coming out. Awesome. All right. Thanks everyone. Don't forget to hit like, and subscribe and we'll see you guys on the next one. Thank you. I'm tired.

[01:33:15] I'm tired. I'm tired.