If you’re around Hillcrest this month, take a few minutes to find the Jamboree display.
This fall, we’ll tell the stories behind some of the pieces in the case: where they came from, what they mean and who brought them to life.
Pickleball Jamboree exhibit at Hillcrest Community Centre in Vancouver, featuring handmade pickleball trophies, handmade wooden paddles, troop culture, field kit, and merit badges from five years of Jamboree events.
Pickleball Jamboree began five years ago in an empty parking lot near Jericho Beach. Lines were chalked onto asphalt, a portable net set up like a tent. The first final was contested by three players + two dogs. Since then, Jamboree has travelled through community centres, churches, empty curling rinks, abandoned department stores, old warehouses, and beneath the starry pink night sky on Baja’s East Cape. Along the way, it has developed its own language, rituals and objects.
A merit badge marks something the scoreboard cannot. An idol gives a team the power to replay a rally, provided someone throws it down with sufficient panache. Trophies are made from busted up pickleballs. Each Jamboree troop has created its own customs and visual idiom.
Among the most prized artefacts in the Jamboree collection are the Henriquez paddle, an original Cosom ball, and the Steyn “signature” edition wood.
Placed together, these objects tell a larger story. A sporting culture begins to feel real when people start making things for one another. The stories acquire physical form. Someone designs a troop crest. Someone makes charm bracelets. Someone drives around town for months with a Jamboreenie on the dashboard of their car. A strange little world begins leaving artefacts behind.
Wooden pickleball paddle made by Canadian architect Richard Henriquez from wood found on Vancouver’s Jericho Beach, displayed in the Pickleball Jamboree exhibit at Hillcrest Community Centre. It evokes Roy Hobbs’ Wonderboy, the bat cut from a lightning-struck tree in The Natural.
The Steyn edition signature wooden pickleball paddle and handmade Jamboreenie figure in the Pickleball Jamboree collection at Hillcrest Community Centre in Vancouver.
First hit ever at Hillcrest Curling Centre with Jamboree’s first Fan Club recipient Ronith Cogswell — before the lines were taped and the ice was fully drained.
Pickleball Jamboree merit badges celebrating achievements beyond scoreboard: Erne, Les Dex, Cloudmaker, Fan Club, Perfect Attendance, Reset Banger. Original Jericho Hill Pickleball School + El Camino pickleball camp stickers.
Thank you to the Vancouver Park Board for hosting the Jamboree exhibit at Hillcrest this month — and the opportunity to shape our journey through so many distinct spaces.
The collection is real. The culture is still becoming.