Western Region Championships a Success!

Pickleball Canada's Western Regional Tournament Hosted by Vernon Pickelball Club Completed as a Total Success July 28th: 

I had a chance to visit Vernon and learn what it takes to host an event such as the Western Regionals. The thing that sticks out in my mind is how much work needs to be done to host an event of this magnitude.

In a sit down with tournament chair, Richard Chambers, I discovered what it takes:

• A hard working and dedicated tournament chair
• Twenty odd portfolios, and
• Over 200 volunteers.

Once a host club(s) has been determined and a chair has been selected the work begins. It takes about 6 months of planning and preparation to have a successful tournament.,
Richard Chambers, as the tournament chair, put all of this together. He built his team and secured the volunteers necessary to chair all the various committees needed to prepare for and execute the tournament. The various committee chairs secured the facilities, the referees, the sponsors, set up the advertising established the draws, registered the players, as each performed all the tasks required of them.

The central “brains” of the event is the operations crew. With the help of technology this core function managed the draws, recorded results and matched teams moving forward in each of the draw categories. Considering there are 5 main events, skill levels within each event, and age categories within each skill level, keeping teams and payers correctly positioned in their draw is a major function of a tournament this large. This core group needed to track the outcomes and final placement of over 620 players in nearly 70 divisions. Then, as each division finals were completed ensure there were proper medal awards and presentations.

One definite obstacle to the success of this or any tournament, is a turn of bad weather. Any event needs to be aware of the possibility of rain and wind. A plan B is necessary and this plan might include the shortening of an event, the cancellation of an event or in the worst case the cancellation of the tournament.

Any plan B must consider the availability of weather tolerant facilities. Happily, there is an excellent indoor facility in Vernon that could be put in use in the case where bad weather might force any event(s) to be shortened and play extended into the wee hours of the morning. There were periods of inclement weather on the Thursday and the scheduled Ladies singles event was shortened from best of three games to a 15-point single game. All in all, the event was a huge success and the organizers and volunteers are to be commended for the excellent job they did. 

Congratulations to the 475 BC pickleball players that competed in the tournament in Vernon this past weekend. We hope you enjoyed your time, played to your satisfaction and met a lot of new ’friends’. And a similar shout out to the other 200 non-BC competitors that came to Vernon for the same experience. 

A special shout out to all the Vernon players that volunteered their talent and time to organize and deliver. In addition to that local talent pool, a solid thanks to all that came from ‘away’ to volunteer or work the event.

WELL DONE VERNON ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF PICKLEBALL BC!!

From left to right (top to bottom to on mobile): Dave Eaton (Secretary PBC Board), Rod Williams (Registrar PBC Board), John Davis (Marcom PBC Board); Viewing Area Vernon indoor facility; Medal awards - Ladies  
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