The Lethbridge & District Pickleball Tournament takes place May 2-4, 2025 at the Agri-food Hub & Trade Centre. (Photo: Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Pickleball tournament announced in Lethbridge as sport continues to grow

Apr 15, 2025 | 3:00 PM

The 2025 Lethbridge & District Pickleball Tournament will only be the beginning.

The event was announced on Tuesday and will take place from May 2-4 at the Agri-food Hub & Trade Centre.

It will include members of the Lethbridge and Coaldale Pickleball Clubs with 12 courts in the event centre’s trade halls.

The tournament will feature singles and doubles events for men and women as well as doubles competitions for junior boys and girls.

Lethbridge Pickleball Club President Klaus Witzke says it is the fastest-growing sport in Canada, and that is certainly reflected in southern Alberta.

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“Our Lethbridge Pickleball Club started with maybe 25 people. We are well over 300. In southern Alberta alone, there’s well over 1,000 pickleball players. It’s grown from virtually nothing since 2017,” says Witzke.

His goal is to make this a regular event and eventually host provincial tournaments with 300-500 participants and national championships with as many as 1,000 athletes.

“They can only be held in facilities such as this because we have the space,” says Witzke. “We can expand from eight to 16 to 24, as many courts as we need. If we have 1,000 players, we would need upwards of 24-30 courts.”

Paul Kingsmith, Director of Event Development for Lethbridge & District Exhibition (LDE) adds that, in the past, an event of that scale would need to be spread out among multiple facilities and even more days.

He says LDE heard from the pickleball clubs that they need a large and modern facility like the Agri-food Hub to accommodate a sporting event like this.

“With the floor space that we have in our trade halls to bring it all under one roof, to put 12 courts in there, it’s really going to create a festival atmosphere around the tournament and that’s super exciting. It’s what this was designed for,” says Kingsmith.

Registrations for the Lethbridge & District Pickleball Tournament are open until April 25, 2025. The first 24 registered youth players will have their fees waived. Registrations can be completed online here.

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