The Night Market. Hong Kong cafes, noodle houses, dumplings. The food courts and warehouses stacked with imports. The fishing boats of Steveston. The float planes and bridges and salt air and hustle. And YVR.
Slowly, then suddenly Richmond has transformed into Richmond.
In Richmond, Jamboree will explore the limitless connective tissue between West Coast pickleball and Pacific Rim pickleball. (Photos courtesy of Tourism Richmond, Zero Zero, Richmond BC Pickleball Association.)
You can make a case that pickleball is the piece that brings all of Richmond’s different energies together.
In Richmond, you feel the limitless connective tissue between West Coast and Pacific Rim pickleball. You feel the speed of badminton and table tennis, the social rhythms of mahjong, and the conventions of North American pickleball combining into something new.
Remember, pickleball was invented on Bainbridge Island in the Pacific Northwest. It’s a regional game. There’s context to it here.
Richmond and Vancouver often feel less beholden to the rest of Canada and more to this expansive notion of Cascadia — connected by time zone and Pacific Ocean and mountains and a certain kind of morning.
Where Richmond pickleball eventually goes, the rest of Canada will follow.
Designing a new set of Idols, Mulligans and Artefacts for Richmond’s first-ever Jamboree.
A couple of years ago there was a thought that Richmond couldn't support even a small private club. A year later there were four. Now the courts can't open fast enough.
Most of the visions we’ve seen begin by optimizing every square inch. That’s a rational way to run a building—a business. But taken too far, it can produce a place people use without ever becoming a place they belong to.
Zero Zero is the other thing. Start with the name. The score before anything has happened. The single purest moment, where every outcome is still available. Push the numbers closer together and they resemble infinity.
Most facilities are named after a place or a person or a play on some pickleball word. Zero Zero is named after a moment.
Right now, that moment seems larger than pickleball.
On Friday, Keke Sun joins us.
We’ll talk about how Zero Zero began and the choices Keke is making this fall to prioritize culture in her clubs. We’ll talk about whether authentic culture can survive DUPR ratings, private court bookings, copycats, rapid growth—and about the difference between pickleball fashion and signature pickleball style.
And we’ll talk about what the Jamboree fall season will look like in Zero Zero’s new flagship.
Free and open to everyone, as always.
Friday, September 11 — https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81352747824
Pour yourself a stiff bubble tea. Bring your questions.
The inaugural Jamboree Combine in Richmond is currently at capacity. Get a spot on the standby list. To create access for players who can’t commit far in advance, we reserve a small number of spots for release 24 hours before each Jamboree and again on the day of the event. Reply to this message if you want to try it out.
