ALASKA INTERNATIONAL SENIOR GAMES
M
By Alice Tym
brightly—even the afternoon thunder
and lightning over the mountains
held off until the very end.
Many players took advantage of
the pre-tournament clinics, and a
post-tournament boot camp taught
by pro players Kyle Yates and
Irina Tereschenko. Kyle and Irina
also competed.
One of the wonderful benefits of
playing in Fayence was the cuisine.
Of course in France, even if your
game was great, the food is even
better! On Saturday evening, the
hosts organized a local dinner under
the stars.
One of the most memorable
moments came on Saturday morning
when the host team performed
a group pickleball dance. The
choreography, music and chant
were brilliant. No doubt, they spent
many hours practicing the dance
moves together. When you see their
performance, you’ll understand that
the French have set a very high
bar for all other future pickleball
tournaments. www.facebook.com/
EastportPickleball/videos.
So, thank you Pierre—and all from
Équipe France. It’s not goodbye,
but hasta luego, auf wiedersehen,
ci vediamo, nähdään taas, tot ziens,
cheers, and à bientôt!
ost people say the
best thing about
pickleball is the
people. To combine
friends and a great destination
venue doesn’t get any better than
the Alaska International Senior
Games. The Games are played in
mid-August when Alaska is at its
summer best. The venues are in
Fairbanks. Pickleball is played at
the spectacularly beautiful University
of Alaska Fairbanks Recreation
Center where the mascot is Nanook,
the polar bear. The campus has a
wonderful museum of geology and
Native American art exhibits. The
large animal research station gives
tours of the musk ox facility.
This year there was a contingent
of players from Whitehorse, Yukon
Territory, as well as players from
all over Alaska and the lower 48.
“Destination tournament” is putting
it mildly! You can fly into Anchorage
and head north to see Denali, the
tallest mountain in North America
at 20,310 feet, then continue on to
Fairbanks. Or, you can spend a few
days down south in Homer on the
Kenai Peninsula watching the bears
fish for salmon.
Carolyn Bagley and I took a
floatplane out of Homer and flew
over Chinitna Bay viewing humpback
whales, a smoking volcano and
glaciers. We landed near a sandbar
and boarded an airboat. After
watching a few bears along the
coast, we parked on the mudflats
and watched them fish. The adult,
experienced bears just stood in the
water and waited for the salmon to
pass by. The bears then flopped on
the fish and dined in.
When the tournament finished,
players headed north to Chena
Hot Springs to relax in the giant
thermal pool. En route back to
the Anchorage airport along the
Richardson Highway, we passed
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
and then climbed on the 27-mile-
long Matanuska glacier. Bring your
crampons! Pickleball shoes are
slippery.
The hospitality is unprecedented
and you will treasure your new
pickleball friends like the gold in the
Alaskan rivers.
For more information about
the Alaska Games, visit
www.alaskaisg.org.
Alice Tym (left) with Carolyn Bagley.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 |
MAGAZINE
57