Chuck Hassler

By many people’s standards, pickleball is a dumb game, like tennis for wienies. You play on a downsize court, using glorified table tennis paddles, whacking a plastic wiffle ball back and forth.

They probably haven’t ever played the game. Never gave it a chance because it’s for old feeble folks who can no longer do much beyond staggering from the buffet line to the bathroom. Right?

Wrong, Sherlock! So very wrong you deserve a spanking.

It’s the fastest growing sport in the country for the simple reason that it’s addictively fun. You can learn the basics in a few minutes but mastering the game will elude you for the rest of your life. You will have frustrating fun trying to improve, so much so that it’s hard to go back to real life after playing, and as you leave the court, you will be scheduling your next appearance. And the next time you won’t suck like you did that last game.

You will make new friends and if you play long enough eventually you will find a crew to play with regularly and you will come to treasure your time playing with them. My crew happens to be a bunch of beautiful women, most of whom are decades younger than I am and one of whom is my daughter. I am not sure why they put up with me other than my daughter is a wonderful human being and everybody in Cody knows it. And they’re all good players. Cutthroats, every one of them.

You want to play against good players because it’s fun and you advance your level of play. Everybody is a beginner and learning the basics at some point, and every more skilled player needs to take the time to teach and play with new players but you can only take so much of it before it’s someone else’s turn.

I get up really early every weekday and drive to the rec center to play because most of the women have to go to work afterward. A couple of other Powell players usually come a little later and play on different crews. I love playing with them too.

But we don’t have any place to play in Powell in the winter. We’ve been booted from one venue to the other and then out the door. The last place we played was at the multipurpose room at the fairgrounds which worked OK. We even ponied up a little money to play there. When there was something else scheduled like a dog and pony show or a wedding reception or a banquet, we got the boot, which was also OK. But we had to implore the county commissioners to allow us to use the otherwise unused space and putting masking tape down on the beautifully finished concrete floors was verbotten. I guess it destroyed the ambiance. I guess painting lines would be akin to total ruination.

This winter we got kicked out completely, despite the best efforts of Colby Stenerson and Jim Tobin.

In the meantime Cody added two more courts at a private fitness center. Even tiny Cowley manages to find space at the log gym.

That leaves a couple dozen Powell pickleball players out in the cold.

What’s the score? A frequently asked question in pickleball, but I mean how come?