The Whistler Racket Club (WRC) nets three decades of operations this summer.
On June 1, the WRC is marking the occasion with tennis and pickleball mixers, free introductory clinics, a patio brunch, live music and barbecue, free mimosas and more. Attendees can register in advance of the event to secure their spot. All amenities are on display for the 30th celebration, and in a toast to the club’s history, owner-operator Jamie Grant explained the event will welcome back former tennis directors Peter Schelling and Marjorie Blackwood.
Blackwood was the director of the club when Grant first started coaching at the WRC 20 years ago.
“I came to the Whistler Racket Club with my resumé, and lo and behold, Marjorie Blackwood was the director,” he recalled. “And I remember seeing her at the Canadian Open in Toronto when I was growing up. [She was] this icon of Canadian tennis and here I am in an interview with her.”
The event kicks off at 9 a.m. with a patio brunch that runs until 2 p.m. For newbies wanting to get into the sports, free introductory clinics for pickleball and tennis run between 1 and 2 p.m.
From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 to 6 p.m., the club will host a tennis mixer, pickleball mixer and open play. The mixers cost $22 for club members and $30 for non-members. The tennis mixers with Schelling and Blackwood are already sold out, but there’s still space for pickleball play.
From 6 p.m. to close, guests can enjoy a barbecue with live music featuring Vancouver-based band Buddy & The Scarecrow with entry costing $10.
The event is also an opportunity to showcase how important the space is for gathering, with uncertainty around whether the club will continue at its current location.
The WRC is on a 5.2-hectare parcel of land the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) is in the process of rezoning. This will allow property owner Beedie Living to develop the land, adding hundreds of new beds, community amenities, and green space. However, as it stands, there are no plans to include or reimagine the club in the designs.
“It’s an honour to be the owner-operator right now as we celebrate 30 years. I take it very seriously, and it's a challenge with the politics of this piece of land and what's going to happen moving forward,” Grant said. “There's the challenge of balancing the tennis community with the pickleball community now in one facility that was not built originally for both, and now we've become quite community-friendly with the events.”
One of the reasons the WRC is seeing success is the rise in pickleball and Grant’s push to diversify offerings at the club.
“There's a very strong tennis community in this town that have kept this place alive for years, against all odds, because it's not a big community, but they're very passionate about tennis and about having a tennis facility in this town,” Grant said.
“They've done a lot to make sure there was an opportunity for someone like myself to come along five years ago and continue it and grow it into the facility it is now, which is embracing the new phenomenon that is pickleball while balancing our tennis community and family programming and all the other stuff we do.”
Whether it’s food and beverages, music, basketball, ping pong, axe throwing, cornhole or even roller skating, each offering at WRC helps bring community into the space. While the term club may evoke a sense of privacy specific for members only, the space is open to anyone and Grant has curated a feel that’s more rock ‘n’ roll than symphony orchestra.
“I think it suits this town, not to have some posh, snooty club, but it's open to everybody and affordable,” he said.
Read more at mywrc.ca.
