The Real Story Behind Pickleball Coming to the GTA .......

by Wayne Roswell

I have been researching the background of Pickleball in Ontario, Canada this summer. I found out that the first club that any one can remember started in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto, Ontario. I was informed that the couple that started that club were still actively involved. I made a visit to Mississauga and here is the real story behind Pickleball coming to the Greater Toronto area.

John and Margaret Hoyt were introduced to the game of pickleball while staying in an RV park called Thousand Trails near Orlando, Florida in 1993. Margaret was a tennis player so she picked up the game quickly. John had never played tennis but he found this new game called Pickleball to his liking. After playing in Florida they came back to Mississauga, Ontario and started the first club at Mississauga Valley in 1993 – 1994. They used an upstairs auditorium and had to tape off the court. They had one court with10 players and John says, “we weren’t very well liked.”


John and Margaret continued to travel to Thousand Trails parks throughout the US to play Pickleball on cement courts. Paddles were hard to come by and not supplied by the parks. John and Margaret were finally able to buy a package produced by Doug Smith of Pickle-Ball Co. that contained two paddles and two balls. They now had their own paddles and John had a prototype to build paddles in the future.

The club was moved to bigger facilities at The River Grove Community Centre (photo left) and with the help of Terrence Rozario and John Sequeira the club is now playing on three courts. John invited his brother Tony to come out and play at River Grove back in 2000. Tony travelled across the top of Toronto for several months to play with the group.

In 2001, Terrence Rozario and John Sequeira travelled from Mississauga over to the Milliken Center in Scarborough to help Tony Sequeira introduce the game of Pickleball to the Milliken Recreational Center. This center attracted a lot of attention and quickly grew to 35 - 40 regular players. Tony, then helped introduce Pickleball to Malvern, another recreation center in Scarborough. From one small center in Mississauga the sport of Pickleball grew across the Greater Toronto Area.

Since paddles were hard to find back in the early days, John used the one he got in the US as a pattern to build wooden paddles that most of the players still use today. The only thing you could order on line in the mid 90’s was flowers. John used the inner tube of a racing bicycle tire to mold a grip on his first models. John tried different types of wood but could not get the weight he wanted, so he drilled holes in the face to make the paddle lighter. Although not legal for tournament play, they work fine for all the members and without John’s efforts they would not be enjoying pickleball. As they say, “necessity is the mother of invention”.

The club had 15 members playing the day of my visit and John and Margaret were busy organizing play. Due to illness, John has not been able to play for a while but his doctor has given him the okay to start again. Remarkable for someone who is 88 years young.

I would like to thank Margaret and John for their hard work and dedication in bringing Pickleball to Mississauga and in fact the whole GTA. Without your insight, there would not be the number of players enjoying this great game in Ontario today. If we were to name a Mr. and Mrs. Pickleball in Ontario, it is without a doubt, John and Margaret Hoyt.