00:00Well, the pickleball courts at the Chinese Association of TNT held the action for the
00:04inaugural Spirit Mask Pickleball Invitational. The tournament featured 17 teams. Organizer
00:10of the event, Adrian Schoon, says the objective is to make it bigger and better and to provide
00:14a social experience.
00:16The objective is just to bring different communities together. Us at Spirit, we are
00:20a community. You know, last year one of our directors insisted that we give our pickleball
00:25rackets in all our goodie bags. So we had 4,000 masqueraders receiving these rackets and it
00:31just happened at the same time with the fastest growing sport all over the world, which is
00:35pickleball. So we saw some synergies there.
00:38He added the tournament will be broken down to quarterfinals, semifinals and a final with
00:43prizes to be won. And there are different divisions for those with different competitive levels.
00:49There's competitive and socials. Somebody like me is in socials, right, because I'm not a professional
00:53pickleball player, but we have some national pickleball players that have signed up as well.
00:58So there's a competitive side and there's a fun side as well. And we got a lot of sponsorship
01:02from Stamina as well.
01:03He says based on the turnout, they will be bringing it back again.
01:06Especially with the response that we have today, it's very full. So I anticipate that
01:11next year is going to be twice as big. We may need to get a bigger venue, but CAT has been
01:15very good to us, the Chinese Association. So we want to do this with them annually.
01:20How far do you see pickleball growing in Trinidad and Tobago?
01:22I see it taking over many, many sports, specifically because of the fact that all demographics can
01:28play. I used to play football for recreation, but I enjoyed my ACL. I can no longer play
01:32football. But pickleball is a little bit easier for me to play and I still get that good cardio in.
01:36C224, TB6 Sport.
Comments