Aspen Meadows transformed into a top-tier pickleball venue on Thursday, featuring some of the sport’s top players with a twist — some cream-of-the-crop hockey talent traded in their blades and twigs for tennis shoes and paddles.
In the first Pickle ‘n Pucks tournament, the worlds of Tom Dundon collided. Dundon is the owner of the Professional Pickleball League and the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, plus a businessman with Aspen ties. So, on National Pickleball Day he brought some of the top players from pickleball to Aspen to showcase their skills, inviting some of his well-known hockey connections and setting up the whole thing to be broadcast on ESPN2 to grab a larger audience.
“The crossover is the most beautiful part of pickleball,” AJ Koller, a PPA pro and former club hockey player at CU Boulder, said. “It’s not just a graveyard for tennis players or ex-tennis players. It really does let baseball guys, football guys, hockey guys find a new competitive spirit after they’re done playing pro. … So to get it on ESPN in a place like this, it’s a perfect marriage for showcasing.”
Double-decker stands lined the longsides of the court, with a larger grandstand for more seating, catering and the television broadcast on one side. The court was lined with video boards to show the logos of sponsors, and the corners were rounded off with some turf-grass panels.
Players talked tongue-in-cheek smack — as did some of the fans — hats and paddles were given away, and a trio of youngsters got out on the court to play with some of the game’s best during a TV timeout.
Koller joined the Johns brothers Ben and Collin — ranked within the top 10 in the PPA in doubles with Ben ranked No. 2 in singles — Anna Leigh Waters (ranked No. 1 in women’s singles) and Meghan Dizon, another top ranked player on the pickleball pros side, plus tennis-convertees Genie Bouchard and John Isner.
On the hockey side were Stanley Cup champions Justin Williams and Kris Draper; new Hurricanes General Manager Jarmo Kekalainen; and current Anaheim Duck and former University of Denver Pioneer Troy Terry.
Draper, now director of amateur scouting for the Detroit Red Wings after a storied career with them — including during the peak of their rivalry with the Colorado Avalanche — made more news in Aspen recently after making Fisher Scott the first former Aspen Junior Leaf to be selected in the NHL Draft in July.
A total of seven matches were played, mixing hockey players with pickleball players, hockey players versus tennis players, and so on. The most surprising result was likely a comeback by Draper and Williams against Dizon and Bouchard, trailing heavily early but eventually pulling through 7-6.
Six matches were scheduled, but organizers decided on a rematch of the final game between Ben Johns-Bouchard and Waters-Isner after having time left in the broadcast schedule and the rain holding out. However, when the drops started falling, it was called.
The high level of play drew excitement from the crowd, with high-speed volleys, well-placed shots and even an in-between-the-legs shot. The environment was casual but the play was likely some of the most advanced many in attendance had seen.
“Playing in the event was awesome. I felt like everybody was good enough to get some points,” Waters said. “Sometimes with celebrities you never know what you’re going to get, but I thought they were pretty good.”
The 17-year-old noted that when she first started playing pickleball after COVID-19, there were no games broadcast nationally. She said the game has grown tremendously, with a game on some network seemingly every week. She acknowledged that events like this have helped it grow.
The tournament was the finale of a three-day event, as some of the pros taught lessons to amateurs and went on a bike ride with Lance Armstrong on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Alex Rebeiz, owner of Cascades Tennis — which operates at the Meadows and helped staff the event — said he hopes the event returns over the coming years.
“To bring it with such a small, intimate environment gives everybody the ability to see how fast it is, hear the interaction between the pros,” Rebeiz said. “The experience is fantastic, 75% of these people are clients who live here and play this sport, so I think it’s going to have a positive impact on them moving forward.
