Dodgeball is one of several recreational sports offered by the Ottawa Sports and Social Club.
Every pre-pubescent pupil sits in their elementary school classroom and awaits the sweet sounding ring announcing the most important part of the day – recess!
Wouldn’t it be great to relive that period and its ridiculous childhood games, running around the playground dodging balls and playing baseball with soccer gear?
Nicki Bridgland, founder and director of the Ottawa Sports and Social Club, thought it was time Ottawa got in touch with its inner child.
In February 2003, the unique recreational club for adults got its start.
After playing in sports and social clubs in Toronto and San Francisco for years, she found Ottawa lacking, says Morgan McHardy, the club’s manager of facility and sport operations.
“When she moved to Ottawa there was nothing of the sort . . . so she started it herself,” McHardy says.
Bridgland was right about the city’s need for a quirky new sports scene.
In its first season, the club had 300 weekly players, and this year that number has spiked to over 6,000.
The enthusiasm for adult organized sports isn’t slowing down, and the club is preparing an exciting calendar of events for the upcoming spring season.
League games take place all over the city, including several locations in Centretown says Andy Reside, the Ottawa Sports and Social Club’s league facilitator.
McHardy says that the club has a long line of outdoor sports this spring ranging from flag football to kayaking.
The club will also add kickball, a type of baseball where the batter kicks a rolling soccer ball to initiate play, to its long list of recess-like sports activities.
Centretown resident and dodgeball player Mike Hogg, says the club is the only one of its kind that he’s seen advertised – and he loves that it includes dodgeball.
“The first few games feel pretty funny because you’re playing a kid’s game like dodgeball like you did when you were four or five, but you’re old and playing with older players.”
Aside from the fact that the club has grown men and women acting like school children, the centre is Ottawa’s only multi-sport club which has 18 different leagues under one organization, McHardy says.
Participants can play everything from basketball to volleyball without needing to join different organizations.
The club even offers a league where teams compete in different sports from week to week.
Membership at the sports club is equally divided between men and women, and the teams aren’t too competitive.
“Our club doesn’t claim to offer the most serious leagues, but it definitely provides members with serious fun,” says McHardy. “Bottom line, the Ottawa Sports and Social Club is recess for adults.”
The club has ties with local bars across the city, including all ten of the Royal Oak pubs.
The bars provide free food and drinks to the club’s players after almost every league night, says Hogg.
Members play games from their childhood past, but get the grown-up benefits of a team beer afterwards.
Registration for spring leagues at the club starts this month.