Ping pong players face off at the National Table Tennis Training Centre.
One summer night in 2009, Michael Kirkpatrick and his pals were busy lugging ping pong tables onto the dance floor of the Capital Music Hall, a musty and now shuttered venue more suited to thumping tunes than thumping balls.
Kirkpatrick was holding his first charity event, Ottawa Charity Ping Pong, to raise money for at-risk youth.
Roughly 80 people showed up that evening, dressed in their best sporting whites and retro sweat headbands. Kirkpatrick, surprised at the enthusiastic turnout, sensed an inkling of potential.
This year, Kirkpatrick and his friends held the charity’s fourth annual tournament on Sept. 27 – their most popular one yet – at SpinBin, the city’s year-old ping pong bar on Dalhousie Street in the Byward Market.
The success of his charity drive speaks to the larger ping pong boom going on in the city.
“The ping pong revolution is upon us,” says Kirkpatrick. “And you don’t have to be a rock star athlete to enjoy it. As long as you can hold the paddle in one hand and a beverage in the other, you’re just about as good as everybody else. That’s the reason it’s really catching on.”
Ottawa is experiencing an unprecedented surge in ping pong popularity.
Aside from the charity drive and SpinBin, the Ottawa Sport and Social Club, an athletic community in Centretown, just launched its first ping pong league with almost 60 participants.
Ottawa Sport Plus, another Centretown coed sports organization, ran its first ping pong league this summer.
It was so popular that it’s being offered again in the fall
and winter.
“Table tennis is kind of like chess where you’re trying to outthink your opponent,” says Steven Lambrushchini, a ping pong event co-ordinator for Ottawa Sport and Social Club. “You just love it, that’s why you play it.”
Lambrushchini, who oversees the club’s league matches, says participants are just grateful for a venue to hit some balls.
“People say to me, ‘I’ve been looking for a place to play ping pong and it’s so great this
[league] is here.’”
One peculiar thing about ping pong’s rise in Ottawa is how it’s outgrowing a well-worn stereotype as the basement sport for nerdy kids, or as a lesser version of tennis.
Ever since Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon co-opened a chain of ping pong bars in New York, Toronto and Los Angeles a few years ago, ping pong has, surprisingly, become the cool thing to do with 20-somethings looking for a fun night out.
“I don’t know how or when hipsters took control of ping pong, but they did and they’re running with it,” says Kirkpatrick. “You’re either a part of the magic or you’re not.”
Tony Kiesenhofer, chief executive with Table Tennis Canada, says the recent growth in the sport is something he never expected.
“In 1996, the yearly prize money of all the pro tour tournaments combined was $10,000,” he says.
“Now it’s in the $10-million range. Ottawa is just part of a wave that’s coming across North America.”
But for the sport to take the next step in popularity, Kiesenhofer says ping pong needs better marketing and more government funding to grow its grassroots players – the same ones who are just now getting their starts playing in bars and social clubs.
In the meantime, ping pong largely remains a fun and recreational activity in Ottawa.
But Kiesenhofer has hopes for something more.
“I think there’s a huge explosion on the way, and I think we’re just at the beginning,” he says.