January 28, 2025 • 59 mins
CRBN Trufoam, Selkirk Labs 008, a New Co-Host, Paddle Giveaways S:02 E01
Chapters
00:00 Welcome Back to Pickleball Today
03:01 New Paddle Releases and Giveaways
05:56 Celebrating Anna Leigh Waters' 18th Birthday 08:57 John Friesen's Journey into Pickleball
11:49 Controversies in Pickleball: Paddle Bans and Player Dynamics
17:53 Upcoming Tournaments and Player Partnerships 23:58 In-Depth Review of the True Foam Paddle
31:57 Personal Experiences with Paddle Performance 35:21 Comparing Paddle Options and Pricing
42:07 Product Reviews and Recommendations
44:38 Safety Gear and Eye Protection
51:43 Future Plans and Listener Engagement
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hi everyone, it's Pickleball Pat Batty and I'm with my brand new co-host...
John Friesen.
Thank you, Patrick.
Thank you.
welcome everybody to Pickleball Today the Pod.
We are just starting out season two.
This is season two, episode one.
We've been off the air for quite a while for a variety of reasons.
(00:21):
I won't bore anybody with all the reasons, but they added up and they kept on coming.
But we are here now, we're here live, and we're gonna be doing this bi-weekly for the restof this year.
Right now, yeah, that's the intent.
regular and there was a lot of people asking Patrick sort of when this is going to happen,when we're going to get back to it.
yeah, I agree, I agree.
(00:43):
Holidays, everything under the sun.
But we're gonna have some fun.
First of all, let's mention what we're gonna talk about tonight, John, or this evening, orwhenever somebody's watching it.
First of all, brand new carbon paddle, the True Foam Paddle, right?
Carbon True Foam, we got it right here, we played it, you played it, I've played it, we'vehad some fun with it.
(01:05):
Technically gets released on the 30th, I believe.
And this podcast will be up just around the 29th or 30th.
So the timing is good.
We're also going to talk about the Selkirk 008, which was released today.
It's a similar kind of paddle.
We'll talk about the similarities and differences.
Paddle giveaways.
(01:25):
We got new paddles that we're going to be giving away every month still.
We've launched that contest again.
I will encourage anybody to go to pickleballtoday.co slash /win.
right?
get all the details of that, but we'll mention it again later.
We've got some controversy that's happening.
Why don't you mention some of the topics there, John?
(01:46):
Yeah, that's right.
We've got quite a bit of pickleball news, surprisingly.
It doesn't really slow down even despite the holidays or the break here, but I mean,certainly the Ben and Colin-John split and sort of who Ben's going to play with now.
guess we're in kind of wait and see mode as we approach the Australian Open at this point.
We've got Frederico Staxred as well in the big Adidas deal there.
(02:07):
And not to mention the drama around Kwong Dong and Selkirk.
mean, that's an exciting one.
I don't think it's bad form for us Patrick though to maybe kick today's show off bywishing a big happy 18th birthday to Annalee Waters.
It's kind of a monumental one.
18!
My gosh, she's already 18!
And, you know, right?
(02:28):
With the impact she's had in the game already at age 18.
I think she started as a pro at 13
some it wasn't really yeah I don't think she was that old but man she's changed the gamefor sure but yeah big birthday celebration for her and then you know some other equipment
news that we're gonna get into but certainly there's a lot of topical pickleball news thatwe can discuss but let's let's get into this paddle I mean that that came up we do
(02:58):
We do, we wanna know about John Friesen.
We wanna know about John Friesen.
I know you were bashful and you didn't wanna say.
I was hoping to skip over that part, right?
it's, know, Patrick, thanks so much.
I really appreciate you having me join you on this podcast here.
This is very exciting for me to be a part of.
(03:19):
And certainly it's something that I really wanted to get involved with.
But just knowing really your motivation behind it, I think is what inspired me more thananything else.
Really how, you know, any proceeds that you get as result of this podcast or any of yourambassador work or anything like that, that goes to
support your wife's long-term care and that to me got me right here.
(03:41):
I mean I'm not gonna lie, I admire the heck out of that and so really that was that was anexciting thing.
thing to even talk about, to be honest.
But in Canada, it's an expensive process and one beyond most people to all of a suddenhave to come up with another $2,500 a month or whatever.
Hey, in the US, it would be worse, right?
(04:03):
But anyway, that's where the process goes.
Aside from that, though, it...
Yeah.
Yeah.
to just kind of, you know, put this plug out there.
So if anybody is looking for a cost of support and you have a couple extra dollars in yourpocket or at the end of the month, by all means, please get to your local Alzheimer's
society.
It makes a world of difference.
And we know that we see that firsthand with some of the people in our lives and people weknow.
(04:27):
So yeah, please consider that as your charity of choice.
So a little bit about me, Patrick.
I'm just going to get this out of the way real quick.
I play pickleball with Patrick.
And it's, you know, I learn a lot there just from him and his game and really just talkingto him.
But for me, my professional life, I work in communications and media.
(04:49):
You know, I've been, you know, kind of around between government and private sector and,for the last many years, I guess in the energy sector.
And so that's sort of where I exist now.
So this is a fun hobby to be a part of.
But Pickleball for me has really kind of been an outlet that's that.
has changed my life dramatically in that when I discovered it, you know, thanks to myfriend Sam, who kind of encouraged me to get into it, really it's created an outlet for me
(05:17):
to not only de-stress, get healthy, make a whole new circle of friends, I'm more active, Ifind I play most days, and you know, it's kind of given me the confidence to do things
that I wouldn't have otherwise tried.
I mean, I ran a couple of 5K runs,
this past fall and I, you know, asked me a couple of years ago and I would have told you Iwould never do that, but here I am.
(05:37):
But the game itself, I fell in love with it.
I fell all in.
I used to play tennis when I was younger and now here I am playing pickleball and now I'mtalking about it on a podcast for God's sake.
it's, you know, it's, yeah, I'm,
wise, podcast wise, whatever.
I'll tell you what, it's just a lot of fun.
(05:58):
I enjoy, I will mention, just gravitated to John right away.
He's an infectious personality.
I think a lot of people at our club would say that.
Just a super, super nice guy.
He can hit the ball.
Like, of all, John is a big man.
He's a big man and I am a little man.
And John can hit the, well, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm five nine and I don't know how tallyou are, John, but you're more than five nine.
(06:26):
And, but, and you're sturdy and John can hit the ball.
Well, I keep on saying, don't get a harder paddle, man.
Get a softer pedal, but, just as such a good player and you haven't been playing for along, time, but man, you have picked this up fast.
Yeah, and I think having a tennis background really helps.
Yeah, yeah.
(06:47):
I'm still coming off a bit of a knee pain, but I played on the weekend at a place inMississauga called Rally.
If you get a chance, find yourself in South Mississauga in the Erid Mills area, by allmeans check it out to find a little spot.
But I was playing with a couple people there that I found to be really good, talentedplayers.
And the one I asked her, said, you know, how long have been playing?
(07:07):
And she said, not very long, but I grew up playing tennis.
And so you kind of hear that a lot, but really it's, you know, that's often the sort of
transition from any other sport to pickleball.
More often than not they play tennis.
So a few badminton players too.
played tennis as well.
Again, it was a long time ago, but I did always have an affinity to racket sports morethan other sports.
(07:32):
instance, like golf, I worked out for 50 years and never got good.
Tennis, I played for a few weeks and got adequate.
Right.
And it's like, I just didn't have it for golf.
I like being active.
I like moving.
I don't like sitting around thinking about a shot for five minutes because my brain will
do something to self-destruct.
Actually, even those long, slow pickleball shots can do that too.
(07:57):
Anyway, well first of all, thank you, John.
And we have, speaking of rally, I was talking to some people from there today.
We can't announce enough kind of guests, but we got some guests about to be on the podcastin coming weeks from some of our pro teams in Ontario.
It looks like I'm going to be working with one of the pro teams just as a volunteer basisas well going forward.
(08:24):
But we will announce that when it's ready to announce.
Now, topics today.
We might as well get right into it, John.
And I'll let you lead.
well, why don't we start with the True Phone Paddle?
Or do we want to keep that as a teaser for later?
Yeah, let's keep them tuning in for bit longer, Patrick.
yeah, okay.
Because you want to know whether this thing is for real or not.
(08:46):
We'll get there.
We'll get there.
so I've had a bit of time with it, but Patrick has had considerably more.
And you I think you played what, three and a half hours yesterday, Patrick?
mean, two and a half, two and a half, sorry.
Fair enough.
a half yesterday and I played a couple hours the day before.
(09:08):
My two and a half yesterday wasn't all with the Truephone, but a big chunk was.
One second.
Sorry about that.
no, it's okay.
I'm glad you're feeling better.
So let's talk about some of the equipment.
I think we've got, know, equipment is really seemingly the big topic these days.
You know, probably nothing more than paddles.
And I think a lot of people are tuning into sort of paddle news and staying up to date.
(09:32):
And part of it comes from this guy right here.
So the Yulo mod, you know, TA-15.
This thing is incredible.
And I picked one up just for more posterity than anything else because I always wanted totry it and play it a little bit and I could see why it's banned.
(09:54):
And I was talking to a couple club pros and they were telling me exactly the same thingand their words were, it feels like cheating when you're using it.
So I think the news that sort of took the pickleball world by storm was the banning of themod.
And you know now what since you know there have been many people that have been you knowsort of really adopting it as their primary battle And now all of sudden it's no longer
(10:17):
legal And so I think you know there we have maybe some concerns from you know notnecessarily rec players But maybe I guess but primarily the you know pros and people
looking to go pro.
You know now what?
like do those those wins still count?
This just affect my record now that this thing's bad.
I mean it'll be officially sunsetted in July of this year.
(10:38):
So you got a few months to to adapt or adjust to a new paddle and I think you have tillMarch 1st to trade it in and get a discount on the new models for EULA.
But you know.
in now that you just bought it if you wanted to.
okay.
well I can't trade it in, but I can get 50 % off the new version.
(11:00):
I mean, I don't want to trade it in.
actually...
Exactly, exactly.
It's a souvenir that we can hang on the wall behind you, Patrick, and then you can kind ofjust hold it there as like a relic of like olden days past.
And...
Certainly have a lot of fun with it, but...
(11:20):
don't have to get any extra power as I said.
It's an interesting panel.
So it's legal to play until the end of July or beginning of July.
Beginning of July as I understand, forget the exact date.
God, it keeps changing.
Sorry, March 1st, I believe is the deadline for registering your paddle and qualifying forthe discount.
(11:45):
at least July 27th, don't quote me on that, Patrick.
I'll look it up here while we're going through this, but yeah, absolutely.
it's, it's eligible to be played in the PPA tour, MLP, CMPL, the Canadian ones, CanadianCMPA pro tours, CMPL, all that, assume until that date.
And I think all of the tours are going to go with the same date.
(12:08):
And it's also eligible to be played in your regular USAPA or Pickleball Canada, PickleballOntario tournament.
Okay, until the same date, I'm assuming, right?
July 1st.
Okay.
So again, I don't have one, so I don't have to worry about it.
All of my paddles are currently legal.
(12:29):
And yeah, yeah.
I'm playing a tournament in February, and I haven't ruled out using this as the paddle forthat tournament.
Now, maybe this is an opportunity for folks to get in touch with the show, whether it's onour social channels or however, and maybe we can do a little poll, perhaps, and say, you
know, should John be playing with this in February?
(12:51):
Yes or no?
Right?
So, I mean...
If we can figure out how to post a poll, we will.
Or just leave it in the comments.
In fact, by the way, by leaving it in a comment or something showing up as low battery,let me double check what it is before we.
(13:11):
What is that?
What's low?
Let me double check.
I don't want the whole thing to go down the drain.
Unfortunately, there's no pause button in this whole situation.
I do not know what device it is.
It's not telling me.
I see.
It is the laptop.
(13:32):
You keep talking about stuff.
I'm going to get the power plugged in and we may have to edit out, but I'll just go getpower so we're not going to die.
Okay, I think this is the highlight of the show so far, Patrick.
You know, just these funny little sort of things that happen along the way is all part ofthe adventure is how I see it.
(13:54):
We've got a lot going on in the world of pickleball these days.
We had all kinds of notes we were going to talk about, really the results of the Masterstournament.
There was a lot of activity there.
Some drama that I think has kind of been talked to death.
So for those that follow the PPA, certainly that was a tournament to watch.
(14:15):
If you didn't get a chance to see it, I would recommend going back to watch it.
Probably on YouTube is probably your best bet.
But watching the back and forth and the exchange with Ben Johns and Kuang Dong as well,it's just the shot heard around the world as Zane Navartal said.
(14:38):
There's so much going on when you're watching pickleball, but more so when you're engaged.
I didn't watch that whole tournament, but I did see, and we were fine with power now.
I did see Ben's shot.
guess, I guess basically it was one, not a, would you recall it?
(14:58):
He said it was a warning or you could think of it as a retaliation.
moment there's noise.
There we go.
and I've got a cat meowing outside my studio here, Patrick.
we have family out putting dishes away.
There we go.
(15:19):
And I've just lost my, there we go, there we go.
Now we're all set.
So I guess Kwan has been hitting some shots kind of close to people's heads and a certainlevel of just like any pro sport, there's a level of respect, you know, like hockey has
its own rules and some of them are enforced by the officials and some of them are enforcedby the players.
(15:43):
And in this case, nothing was enforced by officials, but.
Ben thought he would send a warning to Kwon by taking a mean, vicious cut at it and aimingright at him.
that ball would have gone about two miles if it didn't hit something.
(16:06):
But whether it's right or wrong, don't know.
Only pros know that, really, because they know their code.
As we see it here in hockey, the code, we don't know the code.
But it looked nasty at the time, I'll tell you.
It sure did.
It was part of the unspoken rule, like body shots are okay.
Like you can, can body bag the guy across the net, but you know, once you start gettingkind of above the shoulders is when it gets really dicey.
(16:33):
And that's when it's, you know, stop doing it to us.
Here's a warning.
If you're going to keep doing it, I'll do it back.
And that's what we saw there.
I think there was just maybe too much opinion from everybody involved after the fact thatkind of made it the big story that it was.
So yeah.
look at PPA promotes that, you know, the players promoted PPA promotes getting eyeballs onanything these days is, is seeming to be, what, matters, right?
(17:02):
So other, other paddle news.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know.
I don't really think about it.
I don't think that way because of my, maybe my age, but, I don't know.
But anyway, the way of the world right now is hot takes and anything to get a reaction, Iguess.
(17:23):
So hey, speaking of Ben, Ben and Colin have split up as players as well, as a team.
Ben has not announced his new partners yet.
Is that right?
not that I've heard, but I mean that could change by the time this thing airs, but youknow at last count I haven't heard anything but you know I will wait and see.
(17:48):
still partnering, I'm sorry to interrupt, I assume he's still partnering with AnnaliWaters.
I would imagine my gosh why would you play with anyone else?
Yeah.
why would he change that?
I don't know.
So I think we're only talking men.
So he and Colin won't be partners for the season.
They might play one-offs.
He'll announce who he's going to be with as Colin announced.
You know that?
(18:09):
He was exploring a couple different partners.
I think he had it shortlisted.
I don't know that he's officially announced and I don't want to steal this thunder.
Not that I know the answer, but certainly let him do it on his own.
But yeah, it's...
But yeah, we'll wait and see.
I think, you know, looking forward to a couple days from now when the Australian Openstarts and you'll be able to see for yourself at that point.
(18:31):
And so tune in.
I'm sure we'll have lots to talk about.
we're here, let me, we didn't really do much of an intro about the podcast in general, butwe will do a fast one right now again.
And we will ask of you folks if you're enjoying what you're hearing, if you want tosupport us at all, just, you know, give us a like, first of all, it just helps spread the
word.
It's just the way the algorithms work.
(18:53):
Give us a share, give us a comment, leave a comment.
And if you want to win a free paddle, to pickleballtoday.co.
slash win.
And we're giving away a pro level paddle, know, in the $200 range.
We've got a bunch of paddles here where they're just collecting dust here, except for the,one or two favorite ones.
(19:16):
And rather than sit around here, we might as well give them to people who want them.
And the people who want them that are our supporters are the ones they're going to getthem.
So go to there.
There's instructions on what to do.
It's all involving, helping sharing, liking, commenting, and all that.
You get more opportunities.
And believe me, because we are not a massive podcast yet before global domination.
(19:41):
we, you have a really good chance of winning, like maybe a one in a hundred or one in 50or, whatever.
mean, you know, maybe if we, get re rolling here, it'll be less, but for now you have agood chance of winning.
So go to pickleball today.
and hopefully your person is gonna get it.
(20:01):
We ship it from here, we pay for the shipping, they don't have anything, we just gotta getin contact with you.
We do that by email, you'll be on an email list, so stay on the email list or we have noway to contact you.
Because we don't ask for a phone upfront.
I'm gonna cough, so John, you keep rolling for a bit.
(20:24):
You bet.
I was also just going to kind add to that Patrick, that if you're listening to us onSpotify or any of your other podcast platforms, your favorite podcast platforms, give us a
five star or a five star review or like there.
It really helps kind of expand the show's reach and we can reach more audiences at thatpoint.
And who knows, you know, just the more the merrier the way we see it.
(20:45):
Yeah, yeah.
do want to give one quick shout out to my son Luke who has been promoting this toeverybody he talks to not only at his university but at his work and elsewhere.
So there was a lot of people asking when are you going to finally record it?
So here we are.
thanks Luke for the shout out.
to everybody that heard about this podcast through Luke, please make sure you like andshare and engage with us and help promote the show.
(21:08):
we may have a paddle for you here anyway, So now I'll get the old man to pay for it.
anyway, no, you very much, Luke.
We really appreciate it.
But yeah, we probably have one.
Anyway, does Luke play?
a little bit.
(21:28):
Him and a couple of his friends played with me over the summer and the fall, but he's busywith the university and his job and girls are more interesting than his old man playing
pickleball.
That type of thing.
But yeah, he does play.
He enjoys the game.
We'll have to drag him out to the club one these days, Patrick, and you can...
(21:49):
would be fun.
That'd be fun.
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
let me see.
And I'll mention that you mentioned Spotify again.
We are on every podcast hosting platform.
Apple, Amazon, audible, which I think that's cool.
I think that's cool.
I mean, unfortunately, you don't have to buy me a paper a subscription to us.
(22:12):
But if you have an audible subscription, it's right there.
Audible, I heart radio, I don't know, a bunch of others.
And so anytime we post now, the main main place that people see our podcast usually isYouTube to see the video format.
This goes out in audio and video is the same thing.
But YouTube is where that is.
(22:32):
And we have a.
playlist for the podcast on YouTube.
OK, so that's where you'll see us.
And that, again, once you start following, you'll get all the news you want.
So what do you think?
Should we talk about these paddles?
I think so, I think we've kind of kept people waiting long enough.
(22:54):
I'll start with a full disclosure here though Patrick, that I'm a carbon ambassador, so Imight be hyping up the carbon stuff a little more than others.
That's OK.
We're going to be realistic.
We're going to be realistic.
We'll give you your code, though, for sure.
Absolutely, so if anybody wants 10 % off any carbon gear use the promo code carbonjon.
(23:17):
So C-R-B-N-G-O-H-N.
and get 10 % off any purchase from Carbon.
You might want to purchase this new true form paddle once you hear Patrick talk about thepaces that he put it through and really the result of it.
And I only mentioned the ambassadorship as part of a background for why we have thispaddle now since the public release is not for a couple days yet, as you know, as Patrick
(23:42):
mentioned earlier.
So we were able to get a hold of the paddle beforehand because of my affiliation withCarbon.
And I'm still coming off a knee injury.
So I did get to bat it around a little bit but Patrick came to my house and picked it upand and here he is really putting it through the motions.
So
went through snowstorm and blizzard and everything else to get there.
(24:04):
So, well, let's talk about it.
I played with it for the last two days.
extensively on day one and about half of my two and a half hours yesterday.
First of all, I played two and a half hours yesterday.
That on its own is news.
I had last year, last winter in Florida.
(24:26):
I was playing two and a half hours fairly regularly, but dying near the end.
And then I wasn't able to do it.
I was off injured and all kinds of things that when I finally came back, even an hour wasa struggle.
So I noticed about a couple of weeks ago that my energy sag just completely went down thedrain in, it was slightly before carbon here, went down the drain after playing one hour.
(24:55):
And at the end of it, and I've been working on losing some, I'm always working on losingsome weight, but anyway, I realized afterwards that I just didn't have any, any energy in
me.
So probably a low blood sugar thing.
I'm not a scientist and don't know lots about it, but I thought, you know, I hadn't haddinner.
I didn't have a snack or anything during the game.
(25:18):
I was drinking water and I usually have the stuff in it to help.
What do you call that?
Electrolytes, they're like that, yeah.
but boy I had zero energy and I was dying.
So in the last couple weeks I've been very much concentrating on have my meal before Iplay a couple hours before usually but also take some snacks with it.
(25:42):
Now someday we'll find out some really good things to take as opposed to just what Ihappen to have in the house or maybe a good product that we can
share with somebody or a company that wants to tell us about them.
But right now I'm just saying have something and have a snack.
So I've just been using the sweet and salty bars or a protein bar or things like that.
(26:07):
But yeah, but that would be even a better choice probably, But anyway, the point I wasgetting to is gradually I've gone from dying at one hour to being able to play two and a
half hours.
And yeah, I was a little bit slower in the last 15 minutes, but I was really playing welleven right through the last 15 minutes.
(26:28):
Whereas before when I died, not only was I not playing well, I wasn't thinking well, Iwasn't doing anything well.
So the low blood sugar, if that's what it is, really does things to you.
So I was quite pleased to go two and a half hours.
I have no muscle pain, no anything pain.
If I was selling a product, I'd be selling it like crazy right now, but I'm not.
(26:51):
It's just the reality of actually thinking about what was going on and coming up with thesolution.
back to the, and again, someday we'll learn a bit more about some products and things likethat.
Now.
glad you're okay after that two and a half hour run.
Yeah, I honestly got it and I played really well.
(27:11):
So, you know, it's always my partners that are screwing up all the time.
don't know why.
Yeah, right.
Anyway, anyway, so I'm the true foam.
First of all, it's cool.
I won't get into it in a big way, but it looks it is a nice looking paddle cover.
(27:33):
So what's interesting about this paddle?
from the last version that the carbon used to have, which was, know, so it was the carbongear on the one side.
So what you're seeing on the one that Patrick has on the TruFoam is a real close-upversion of this from what I understand.
And so, yeah, it kind of creates that.
like your generic cover, but with the logo on it, right?
(27:55):
This one is certainly much more attractive and interesting.
So let's talk about this paddle before, and then first of all, what is different aboutthis?
The main thing that's different, and John, you can get into real specifics, is everypaddle, pardon me, just about every pickleball paddle made these days
(28:16):
has a honeycomb core on the inside.
So it's a honeycomb polymer or plastic, depending on what you want to call it, inside.
that honeycomb, excuse my coughing again, John.
That's alright, we're all kind of building seasonal.
can crush over time.
(28:37):
It doesn't always do it.
I've got paddles that I've used for a year and a half that have not done it, but it can.
And by crushing, that means all of a sudden it has flexed then in places that it didn'thave it before.
If you push down on a paddle, if it crinkles and you can hear noises in there, that meansit's crushed or what the other term is delaminated.
(29:03):
Okay, this paddle is 100 % unique, one of two in the world now that is not made that way.
There were other types of paddles before, wooden and that, you know, aside, but of thismodern contemporary paddle, this is now made with a solid piece of a proprietary foam on
(29:27):
the inside from the entire head right down through
the handle is one piece of foam.
And the type of foam is a proprietary foam made, cooked up by carbon.
The other thing about the foam, now we could maybe add a photo if we have it now or later,is it has little slots here and there, like a little dash of a slot here and here, all the
(29:54):
way around, so that there's no foam in slots.
There's holes here and there.
And that allows the core, the metal part of it to have a wee bit of a flux.
Okay, now you don't notice a flux.
If you squeeze the paddle, you notice a little bit.
But it's not like this is like a trampoline the way maybe your mod is.
(30:18):
Okay, but this is just a yeah, nice, yeah, if you have it, great.
If not, don't worry about it.
We can add it in later.
Alright, come here.
of one piece.
The nice thing is it's one piece.
So what that does and what I noticed when I played is it just felt consistent.
It felt very solid.
(30:39):
The paddle did not feel hard.
It did not feel harsh.
It has a very nice grip to it.
And I will, as far as playing and me playing, I've had two days and I had two differentdays.
So this is why you want to try a paddle out.
for more than one day.
(31:01):
Because you have good days and bad days.
Now the paddle doesn't, but you don't want to have the greatest day in the world and buya, know, pick a number, $500 paddle, and then find out that was just a fluke.
And the next day you don't have that, and you you've got a $500 paddle that you don'twanna play.
(31:21):
So here's what went on when I played this.
For the first hour,
Day one was a two-hour session.
I know Yeah, but no 90 minutes for the first hour.
I was on fire.
I could not believe How good I played I could not miss a shot I could not miss a serve Myserves were as good as I've ever hit in my life.
(31:48):
And in fact, I would all say The pickleball was almost as good as I've ever hit now.
I have been playing a lot better recently
But boy, I was shocked at how good I played right off the bat.
Like from the very first serve, you would think it would take a while to get used tosomething.
It was great.
(32:09):
It was great.
Now, at the end, I think in middle, I switched paddles just for a few minutes.
Didn't notice a difference.
Then went back to this, and then I didn't play so well.
But the first, now maybe there's a fatigue kicking in.
Maybe.
If that's like the 85 minute mark, then that's possible.
(32:32):
I was shocked at how good now yesterday I played with it again.
there was two and a half hours again.
had a lot of good shots, but I didn't have a consistent like one hour of, you know,walking on water.
You pickle ball.
did not do that.
I was up and down with this and I was up and down with the next panel I played with.
(32:55):
but
Overall, I still played very well for two and a half hours But so I can't say that thispedal compared to I don't have the other one on the wall that I played with Yeah, I don't
have it sitting right there but anyway, I played a Selkirk Pro
(33:24):
thought it might be in your pickleball bag, Patrick.
Yeah, well, I wanted to decorate today, so I put it up.
So I played with this one as well.
And this really has evolved into one of my two main paddles right now.
The Selkirk Pro 14mm XL Halo.
excuse the voice guys, sorry, this has gone on for like a month.
(33:48):
And this is, you know, I've been playing this more than anything.
So I'm really used to this paddle.
And again, by sticking with a paddle for a while.
This one of two that I've been playing with the others a six zero paddle but by stickingwith one or two paddles instead of bopping around with different ones every week the way I
was last year when I was testing so many I've just gotten much more consistent with it.
(34:13):
So one versus the other I think this one is marginally better.
I would think marginally better
I would think this one is extremely good and it's a matter of just trying them.
Right?
This one's a lot less money, but also this one may break down.
(34:35):
It does have honeycomb inside.
Okay.
Now the outside is a Kevlar and carbon mix.
This is a, what's the outside of this?
I just assumed carbon fiber, right?
Yeah.
They both have similar grit, grit with a T.
But I would assume this paddle will last a bit longer than any other paddle out there.
(35:00):
So that's my take on it.
Now I mentioned there's two paddles.
Do you mind if I continue into?
I don't have the other one.
The other paddle literally, so this comes out officially on two days from now.
The other one came out today and that's a Selkirk 008.
Now Selkirk.
(35:21):
has a series called the Labs series.
The Labs series are no joke as far as price.
The list price are $333 US dollars.
They ship from the US.
They don't sell in retail that I know of in Canada.
And so by the time they get to Canada, oh, by the way, in this one, the carbon is when youget to Canada, it's about $400, isn't it, John?
(35:47):
It is, yeah, roughly.
So when you log onto the carbon site, it's going to ask you if you're viewing from Canada,and it'll automatically change the pricing accordingly.
you can see there, yeah, it's in, once the exchange rate and everything, it's around 400.
But definitely worth it, as you heard from Patrick.
So...
Yeah.
So, so that was 400.
This is 189.
(36:09):
But the new and the new lab is one though.
It works out to in Canadian dollars for people in Canada, 500, uh, with all the shippingand everything else.
Whereas if you're in the States, it's 333 us and the shipping's free and there's nobrokerage and there's no duty and customs and all that stuff.
So 500 bucks is a big goal for anybody in any sport.
(36:31):
I know.
Well, certainly for a retired senior.
Let me put it that way.
I'm on a different budget than John is.
And so I'm not spending $500 on a single paddle.
For me, now look at, I've got a lot of paddles.
I don't want to collect paddles anymore.
I may have gone through that phase.
(36:53):
I want to paddles that I'm going to really play.
So I want to play with them for a bit, I've been doing with this.
And I may get one of these.
And like I've been doing with this.
Okay.
So do I think this is better?
Yeah, probably.
Is it twice as good?
Well, no battles twice as good.
(37:14):
But it's a matter of what suits your game.
Right?
It's really a matter of what suits your game.
And yeah, I mean, you like to buy things online.
I like to buy things online.
It's easy.
But if you have a chance to try anything out, give it a try because it's hard for us toforecast.
what you would like.
And we're not trying to sell you anything or anything that you don't want, right?
(37:38):
Yeah, I know John is, but...
I'm teasing, I'm not trying to sell anybody anything.
I forgot though, I forgot to give you the comparison, John, about the 008.
The difference between this and the 008, I don't have an 008 in stock.
may have the labs up there.
No, I don't.
First of all, it comes in a cool metal case.
(37:59):
Yeah, like a little briefcase.
At least the one I saw does.
Now, whether that was a special version, I don't know.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
trying to go for?
and Yula did that with a Ben Johns edition $1,000 paddle last year.
Commemorative one.
So I don't know if every OOA comes with it.
(38:22):
Check the Selkirk Labs website.
But they do come with a Labs member.
don't know.
I don't have a box or anything.
They come in a nice box.
They come with a nice case.
I do have the case.
Big, nice.
beautiful case on these.
(38:43):
do have that, I will show that.
So the...
So this is your typical labs case.
And I think, there's even a fancier one.
Pardon me, that's the regular self-care case.
Here's the labs.
There I mean I got a lot of pals right?
So here's the labs case.
(39:05):
And.
all the really good Söklök stuff for anybody that didn't know.
Well, yeah, but I bought these things, right?
There's a typical, that's a Project 005.
And that's the case.
And they're pretty slick, right?
So it's very nice quilted inside and all that.
So they do it up.
They do it up.
(39:25):
But again, what it's worth to you, I don't know.
I haven't played the Eight.
The difference between the Eight and the Carbon though, is the Eight has a slight, again,
proprietary foam core solid foam Probably a little softer than the carbon foam, but itdoesn't have the slots so it's not going to break down just like You know again like the
(39:52):
honeycomb But it but it still has some give to it, but that give isn't oriented To the youknow the interior versus exterior.
It's the entire bit of foam that entire hunk of foam
is one solid piece with no slots cut into it.
And that's about it.
(40:12):
There might be, I think, little bit of, again, exterior foam around the edge, from what Iunderstood.
I don't know if we can see that.
this, maybe I'll just pull it back a little bit.
But you can see, yeah, you can see the carbon true foam there.
The voids in there are they're holes in the paddle itself, whereas the seltzerk on theother side is one solid piece of foam.
(40:40):
Now what,
what carbon has done, and which I thought was really clever, is by them using these sortof gaps in the actual core, they've created a broader sweet spot.
Now, on the paddle itself, you can kind of see there's this dot pattern, and it's moreaesthetic than anything else, but it kind of emphasizes where that sweet spot is.
(41:05):
not only a really cool look, also really shows how big that sweet spot is.
Even in an elongated paddle, like we've got the Carbon TrueFoam 1 here.
I'll be getting the 2 and the 3 as well, but for the shape of the 1, it gives you a muchbroader sweet spot than you had historically with the other Carbon 1s, whether it the
original or the 1X.
(41:26):
And so I found it to be pretty forgiving all around.
I thought the idea of the slots around it was cool.
Until I played the 008, I mean, I can't really compare how they play, right?
I won't do that.
That's not fair to anybody.
But then I would know which one I like better.
(41:47):
And I like 400 bucks better than 500 bucks.
I know that.
But that's about it.
So let's see.
Anything up to it?
Let me.
listening right now, send him one of the 008 so he can properly test it and he can do acomparison on the TrueFoam and the 008.
That's what I heard there.
We would love it.
(42:09):
I'm not holding my breath, but we would love it.
And we'll try.
Yeah, we will definitely try and we'll do a real honest comparison.
John, first of all, again, let me remind people, give us a like, give us a share, leave usa comment or question or anything.
Future episodes, by the way, I think we're going to live stream them as well.
So that means you can type in questions on the fly.
(42:33):
and leave comments and call us names and do whatever you want to do on the fly and we willrespond.
We wanted to get one or two of these underway before we started adding that to it, but thecapability is there.
If you want to paddle, want a free paddle or at least a chance to win one and a very highlevel chance to win one, go to pickleballtoday.co.
(43:01):
Click on that, it'll tell you everything you want to do and the more of the things that itasks you to do, which are all just normal likes, comments, shares, know, that kind of
stuff.
Follows and whatever on whatever platform or subscribes even probably the best is onsubscribing on YouTube.
Do it there and then stay on the email list.
(43:22):
And when we draw the name at the end, which will be at the end of February.
We will get in touch with you and let you know what the paddle is and find your get youraddress from you so we can ship it out to you no charge.
Yeah, and Patrick has all those paddles behind him on his wall there.
mean, we should just give them all away.
Yeah, we just can't.
(43:43):
got those, I've got 25 or 30 in my closet that I was rifling through to find...
Like look at the most expensive one I had.
is sitting lonely in my closet.
No, I don't play with it.
I did for a while.
(44:04):
And just like everything else, just, you find out what you like and you find out what youdon't, and it wasn't my cup of tea.
Right?
Anything else, John, on your end?
Yeah, a couple things.
I just, while we're on the topic of products here too, just before we got on to record theshow today, I got an email from Yula announcing the Agassi partnership and the
(44:31):
collaboration that they have there with Andre Agassi and Yula.
So I guess that paddle is now being released soon.
Anybody you want to send us one let Patrick put it through the paces and we'll see howhard he can hit with it if you can manage to play two and half hours with that or if it's
gonna you know He'll forget all about time and play for four straight hours, and we'll seebut yeah, it's
(44:52):
and our contact info is on on pickleball today.co.
That's right, so reach out to us with any new equipment suggestions and we're happy to putit through the paces.
I've got two other pieces of equipment I want to talk about, Patrick.
One is really the release of the carbon balls that came along with the paddles too.
So I've been playing with this one and not much of a difference in my view between theFranklin X40 and this one, but it's cool branding so I kind of like it.
(45:21):
So I figure what the heck I'll buy six pack and there we go.
played with it.
It was fine.
It was good.
mean, again, nobody's, you know, going out of their way to buy a particular brand of ball,but people, mean, the industry standard, at least where we're playing, by the way, is
indoor court, but on an outdoor surface.
So that's why the and the Franklin ball is probably the most popular in that environment.
(45:42):
I play crown pickleball.
We are an affiliate for Crown and it's all on our website.
But Crown, coming to Canada for instance, only ships in bulk, not individual.
Yeah, yeah, but it's okay.
mean, I've been handing them out at the clubs, people like them.
(46:03):
You you end up not playing with a ball forever.
I mean, they all go out around at some point or crack or whatever.
I found Crown's outdoor ball, which is what we play indoors, is fine.
I found their indoor ball.
was cracking a lot at the other club I play with.
So I'm not recommending their indoor ball, but I do recommend their outdoor ball.
(46:26):
But either one, whatever.
And you had some glasses you wanted to mention too, and then I've got the ones that I'mplaying with.
Yeah, yeah, so I don't wear glasses like Patrick, so I don't have that safety aspect.
So I've been really looking for proper pair of safety glasses to play with.
(46:47):
Last summer, I did take a ball just above the eye and I had a substantial bruise to showfor it.
It was a bit of an eye-opener, if you will.
How's that for you?
Yeah, thank you.
But really, it gave me pause for thought that I should be taking...
my eye safety a lot more seriously.
So I ordered a pair of nice head glasses, but what I found was they were fogging up on mea little bit and I didn't particularly like that.
(47:12):
So I was on the lookout for something else.
And then I saw another member at the club playing with these goggles that were kind ofhalf and half split, but they were open in the middle.
But they were still a little bit distracting, but they did work and certainly served apurpose.
And I felt a lot more confident.
I tend to play a bit of a harder game and oftentimes my opponent will kind of match thatenergy and then you just kind of open yourself up for an errant ball and you know want to
(47:37):
be safe about it.
What I did find was these.
These kitchen blockers made famous probably by no one more so than Jeanne Bouchard whorecently started wearing these and when I purchased them on Saturday the fellow at the pro
shop I was talking to said he can't keep these in stock.
That as soon as
Jean Bouchard started playing with these, they sold out, they can't make them fast enough.
(48:03):
absolutely, but it wasn't even an endorsement or paid or otherwise.
Well, I guess it might have been, I don't know if it was paid or not, but you know, shewears it well.
And you know, it was just, you know, something worth looking into.
So I bought a pair, they retail for about $80 here.
but they fit well, they're easily adjustable, they have extra pads if you want to kind ofhave them spaced, further off your face or different parts, really they're quite
(48:27):
adjustable and suitable to any shape of face, I have a bit more of eyes, know, spot aroundmy eyes I guess, but I'm really looking forward to getting back in and playing with these
and having that confidence to not have to worry about my eyes and focus solely on my game,but also not have the lenses fog up.
Right, right.
where I think the difference is going to be in these for me.
(48:48):
So stay tuned.
We'll talk about it next time and see how they play for me.
But I'm pretty excited about it.
And I do wear distance, well I wear bifocals, I'm about to have surgery that I won't havebifocals anymore.
But what I've done is I'm noticing I'm not needing the distance glasses element withPickleball now.
(49:09):
If I'm playing in good light.
In our club, a court in Kitchener has very good light.
Actually too bright in a few spots, right?
There's some blind spots because they're not diffused enough.
But.
on court three, I think that's the big one.
yeah, yeah.
But I have now gone to these glasses.
(49:29):
These are not a prescription, but I am seeing just fine with these.
And they are not inexpensive glasses.
They're like photo gray.
They will get darker under if you're outside in the sunlight.
Inside, they haven't been getting darker.
don't know how sexy I look with these.
(49:49):
But I know that I
Everybody else looks sexy when I am wearing them because I can really I'm seeing well withthem and I honestly feeling More confident standing there because yeah, we're all I hate
to say it but we're all a bit of hackers once in a while and We all make mistakes.
Nobody's paying us, you know, like Jeannie Bouchard money to play pickleball and Yeah, andshe makes mistakes You know, so but but us regular folk are out there
(50:20):
trying to have fun, trying to have a good time.
we don't, you know, there's enough ways to get injured in any sport.
You don't need to do it unnecessarily.
And for me, this was, these are, I think it's called Rock Brothers or something like that.
It's on Amazon.
I'll dig it out.
think it's like, they weren't like 25 or 30 bucks and they just are fine.
(50:43):
They do not have a you know, frame around like yours do, which would be better.
Although I also am wearing a cap all the time.
So I got a lot of protection here.
The ball's coming out my eye.
Chances are it's going to hit the brim or hit in here.
If it really was going to sail, it might pop that lens back.
(51:03):
So unlike your eye blockers would.
But I feel confident with them.
I can see well.
They haven't been fogging up inside at all.
Like I literally didn't know I was playing with them on day two.
And, but they did fog up when I was playing outside in the summer.
(51:23):
Now some of that was real hot weather too.
So like we had some 40 degree days and I was out there for a little bit during that.
By the way, we didn't really mention, we, you know, we are talking, we've been talkingabout products and things like that.
We are both based in Canada.
But you know what, about a third or two thirds, in fact, lately it has been two thirds ofour viewers are in the US.
(51:50):
So by default, we think in Canadian dollars, because that is what we spend.
Any link we have, you can buy it in US dollars, you can buy it in Canadian dollars.
So we get country specific only because we live in a particular country.
Obviously, the currency makes a big difference in the dollar.
(52:12):
value especially right now the Canadian dollars around 65 cents US so you can add what 3540 percent on to any US dollar price to come up with the Canadian right but that's why we
do it.
like I was gonna say, just even with the TrueFoam paddle in the US, it's retailing forabout 270.
(52:34):
And I'm paying just over 400, I think it was like 402 is what it worked out to after theexchange.
And so it is pretty dramatic, but yeah, to your point.
that, the Carbon, or sorry, the Salkirk 08, 333 in the U.S.
There was a slight early discount right now.
I can't remember how much it was, but anyway, all that by the time it got here, not justthe dollar conversion, but shipping and everything else, it was over 500 bucks.
(53:01):
Plus there might be some duty on that one because of the price.
A hundred dollar paddle.
If you order a hundred dollar U.S.
paddle and shipping in from
United States there's not going to be any duty on it.
But if you order a $333 paddle there will be.
So, so I think what Patrick is trying to say is all our US listeners for every five starlike that you give this podcast, it's basically, you know, an additional 30 % liking, you
(53:27):
know, yeah, it's, it's 130%, not just 100 % like, so.
play favorites.
I could make it.
I could do that.
U S get favorites in our contest, but I'm not going to do that.
Canada is our roots.
Canada is our initial audience and we are still here in Canada.
the way the weather's been lately, I wouldn't mind not being.
(53:50):
And, but anyway, that's what it is.
So when we talked, I just wanted to explain, especially can we didn't do an official introof the podcast.
We talk Canadian pickleball, US pickleball, the pro tournaments, the products, ourproducts are products.
They're not into, you know, they're not country specific when we get into tips and wehaven't done that lately.
That's again, not country specific.
(54:13):
So we've got lots of content that is valuable for everybody.
and even when we talk about our Canadian tournaments.
the pro tours in Canada, a lot of those players are ending up in the PPA and major leaguepickleball as well.
so it's think of, think of like triple A baseball versus pro baseball.
(54:36):
This is, this is kind of triple A and I think the local, the Canadian leagues recognizethat, right?
But their players are going on to great heights.
Some of them doing very, very well in
Major League Pickleball MPPA, know, Jeannie Bouchard doing well as well, a bunch ofplayers.
(54:58):
So, and we're going to have some of them on our podcast.
And by the way, and again, Catherine Parenteau, a Canadian, you know, has been number oneand number two in the world in various discipline blends over the last few years.
Now she plays with Annali Waters, but she's also been, and Annali's had a number whenthey've played
(55:18):
singles against each other but she's, Katherine's won a share of golds and they've bothwon almost all the golds up until this year in the women's doubles.
But yeah, great player.
Katherine's wonderful.
We have a great interview of her on the Pickleball Today website or on our YouTube channelas well.
(55:42):
She's a lovely person and we also have some of her lessons.
And we'll put more of them on.
So I think, John, I think we've covered everything,
I think for today we have, yeah.
So I mean, think really what we're kind of hoping is that everyone's gonna kind of tune inmore often.
We're hoping to just have a regular cadence of our episodes here, increase the frequencyof our recording here.
(56:05):
Now that Patrick and I are kind of full force on this, we're looking forward to talkingabout a number of things, as Patrick mentioned earlier, really having a couple of guests
on, a couple of pros that he's already in contact with.
and some other additional tips, so whether you're playing at a very competitive level oryou're just being introduced to pickleball, there's a little something for everybody,
(56:26):
whether you're here in Canada or in the US or elsewhere.
Certainly we'll be covering topics around MLP, PPA, CNPL, really just league play.
You can keep up to date on some of our travelings, the anecdotes here.
Certainly Patrick's thorough testing of products, whether it's safety gear, paddles, orotherwise.
(56:47):
But absolutely we'll we'll try to share as much information as we can together keep itengaging and interesting and exciting and and absolutely we'll be counting on on all our
listeners and viewers here to to ensure that you give us those likes and and make sure youenter to win that paddle at pickleballtoday.co slash win you
I will say, John, we're talking about regular recording.
(57:09):
Our next one will be two weeks from now.
However, I may be on a cruise ship and I may have to pre-record a portion from the ship sothat you and you'll host and just throw my portion on because it's pretty unreliable.
I tried it before connecting from the ship for a live podcast.
(57:30):
So we'll do what we can do.
you
But if we do it, we're going to be on Holland America.
It's the official cruise ship of the PPA tour of all things.
yeah.
And I have played pickleball on their ships before.
one has, the last one I played had two courts.
This one only has one, unfortunately, but it's a bigger ship and a newer ship, but theyhave some with more courts.
(57:53):
Anyway, and I don't even know for sure if I'm on it.
I'm on standby.
I will only find out three days before the cruise starts, whether I'm going or not.
So one way or the other, we're gonna have the podcast in two weeks and John will behosting and I'll be either co-hosting or mailing it in with a video.
So if Patrick is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, you know that he's on the cruise.
(58:16):
We'll record two episodes and one he'll be in his usual attire and the other one will bein a Hawaiian shirt and you'll know that he's actually off-site.
big park freezing.
Yeah.
The way it's been like, it's been cold.
Anyway, look, hey, wherever you are guys, thank you for tuning in.
I hope you are warm, having a good time.
(58:40):
I hope you're playing some good pickleball and it will get better this year.
If you're feeling well, congratulations.
If you're not feeling well, pickleball will do it, but be patient.
And stay healthy, stay calm, stay cool, and enjoy your pickleball.
And we'll see you again in a couple weeks.
(59:00):
Thank you, everybody.
See you later.
Bye-bye.
Bye bye.
Hi everyone, it's Pickleball Pat Batty and I'm with my brand new co-host...
John Friesen.
Thank you, Patrick.
Thank you.
welcome everybody to Pickleball Today the Pod.
We are just starting out season two.
This is season two, episode one.
We've been off the air for quite a while for a variety of reasons.
(00:21):
I won't bore anybody with all the reasons, but they added up and they kept on coming.
But we are here now, we're here live, and we're gonna be doing this bi-weekly for the restof this year.
Right now, yeah, that's the intent.
regular and there was a lot of people asking Patrick sort of when this is going to happen,when we're going to get back to it.
yeah, I agree, I agree.
(00:43):
Holidays, everything under the sun.
But we're gonna have some fun.
First of all, let's mention what we're gonna talk about tonight, John, or this evening, orwhenever somebody's watching it.
First of all, brand new carbon paddle, the True Foam Paddle, right?
Carbon True Foam, we got it right here, we played it, you played it, I've played it, we'vehad some fun with it.
(01:05):
Technically gets released on the 30th, I believe.
And this podcast will be up just around the 29th or 30th.
So the timing is good.
We're also going to talk about the Selkirk 008, which was released today.
It's a similar kind of paddle.
We'll talk about the similarities and differences.
Paddle giveaways.
(01:25):
We got new paddles that we're going to be giving away every month still.
We've launched that contest again.
I will encourage anybody to go to pickleballtoday.co slash /win.
right?
get all the details of that, but we'll mention it again later.
We've got some controversy that's happening.
Why don't you mention some of the topics there, John?
(01:46):
Yeah, that's right.
We've got quite a bit of pickleball news, surprisingly.
It doesn't really slow down even despite the holidays or the break here, but I mean,certainly the Ben and Colin-John split and sort of who Ben's going to play with now.
guess we're in kind of wait and see mode as we approach the Australian Open at this point.
We've got Frederico Staxred as well in the big Adidas deal there.
(02:07):
And not to mention the drama around Kwong Dong and Selkirk.
mean, that's an exciting one.
I don't think it's bad form for us Patrick though to maybe kick today's show off bywishing a big happy 18th birthday to Annalee Waters.
It's kind of a monumental one.
18!
My gosh, she's already 18!
And, you know, right?
(02:28):
With the impact she's had in the game already at age 18.
I think she started as a pro at 13
some it wasn't really yeah I don't think she was that old but man she's changed the gamefor sure but yeah big birthday celebration for her and then you know some other equipment
news that we're gonna get into but certainly there's a lot of topical pickleball news thatwe can discuss but let's let's get into this paddle I mean that that came up we do
(02:58):
We do, we wanna know about John Friesen.
We wanna know about John Friesen.
I know you were bashful and you didn't wanna say.
I was hoping to skip over that part, right?
it's, know, Patrick, thanks so much.
I really appreciate you having me join you on this podcast here.
This is very exciting for me to be a part of.
(03:19):
And certainly it's something that I really wanted to get involved with.
But just knowing really your motivation behind it, I think is what inspired me more thananything else.
Really how, you know, any proceeds that you get as result of this podcast or any of yourambassador work or anything like that, that goes to
support your wife's long-term care and that to me got me right here.
(03:41):
I mean I'm not gonna lie, I admire the heck out of that and so really that was that was anexciting thing.
thing to even talk about, to be honest.
But in Canada, it's an expensive process and one beyond most people to all of a suddenhave to come up with another $2,500 a month or whatever.
Hey, in the US, it would be worse, right?
(04:03):
But anyway, that's where the process goes.
Aside from that, though, it...
Yeah.
Yeah.
to just kind of, you know, put this plug out there.
So if anybody is looking for a cost of support and you have a couple extra dollars in yourpocket or at the end of the month, by all means, please get to your local Alzheimer's
society.
It makes a world of difference.
And we know that we see that firsthand with some of the people in our lives and people weknow.
(04:27):
So yeah, please consider that as your charity of choice.
So a little bit about me, Patrick.
I'm just going to get this out of the way real quick.
I play pickleball with Patrick.
And it's, you know, I learn a lot there just from him and his game and really just talkingto him.
But for me, my professional life, I work in communications and media.
(04:49):
You know, I've been, you know, kind of around between government and private sector and,for the last many years, I guess in the energy sector.
And so that's sort of where I exist now.
So this is a fun hobby to be a part of.
But Pickleball for me has really kind of been an outlet that's that.
has changed my life dramatically in that when I discovered it, you know, thanks to myfriend Sam, who kind of encouraged me to get into it, really it's created an outlet for me
(05:17):
to not only de-stress, get healthy, make a whole new circle of friends, I'm more active, Ifind I play most days, and you know, it's kind of given me the confidence to do things
that I wouldn't have otherwise tried.
I mean, I ran a couple of 5K runs,
this past fall and I, you know, asked me a couple of years ago and I would have told you Iwould never do that, but here I am.
(05:37):
But the game itself, I fell in love with it.
I fell all in.
I used to play tennis when I was younger and now here I am playing pickleball and now I'mtalking about it on a podcast for God's sake.
it's, you know, it's, yeah, I'm,
wise, podcast wise, whatever.
I'll tell you what, it's just a lot of fun.
(05:58):
I enjoy, I will mention, just gravitated to John right away.
He's an infectious personality.
I think a lot of people at our club would say that.
Just a super, super nice guy.
He can hit the ball.
Like, of all, John is a big man.
He's a big man and I am a little man.
And John can hit the, well, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm five nine and I don't know how tallyou are, John, but you're more than five nine.
(06:26):
And, but, and you're sturdy and John can hit the ball.
Well, I keep on saying, don't get a harder paddle, man.
Get a softer pedal, but, just as such a good player and you haven't been playing for along, time, but man, you have picked this up fast.
Yeah, and I think having a tennis background really helps.
Yeah, yeah.
(06:47):
I'm still coming off a bit of a knee pain, but I played on the weekend at a place inMississauga called Rally.
If you get a chance, find yourself in South Mississauga in the Erid Mills area, by allmeans check it out to find a little spot.
But I was playing with a couple people there that I found to be really good, talentedplayers.
And the one I asked her, said, you know, how long have been playing?
(07:07):
And she said, not very long, but I grew up playing tennis.
And so you kind of hear that a lot, but really it's, you know, that's often the sort of
transition from any other sport to pickleball.
More often than not they play tennis.
So a few badminton players too.
played tennis as well.
Again, it was a long time ago, but I did always have an affinity to racket sports morethan other sports.
(07:32):
instance, like golf, I worked out for 50 years and never got good.
Tennis, I played for a few weeks and got adequate.
Right.
And it's like, I just didn't have it for golf.
I like being active.
I like moving.
I don't like sitting around thinking about a shot for five minutes because my brain will
do something to self-destruct.
Actually, even those long, slow pickleball shots can do that too.
(07:57):
Anyway, well first of all, thank you, John.
And we have, speaking of rally, I was talking to some people from there today.
We can't announce enough kind of guests, but we got some guests about to be on the podcastin coming weeks from some of our pro teams in Ontario.
It looks like I'm going to be working with one of the pro teams just as a volunteer basisas well going forward.
(08:24):
But we will announce that when it's ready to announce.
Now, topics today.
We might as well get right into it, John.
And I'll let you lead.
well, why don't we start with the True Phone Paddle?
Or do we want to keep that as a teaser for later?
Yeah, let's keep them tuning in for bit longer, Patrick.
yeah, okay.
Because you want to know whether this thing is for real or not.
(08:46):
We'll get there.
We'll get there.
so I've had a bit of time with it, but Patrick has had considerably more.
And you I think you played what, three and a half hours yesterday, Patrick?
mean, two and a half, two and a half, sorry.
Fair enough.
a half yesterday and I played a couple hours the day before.
(09:08):
My two and a half yesterday wasn't all with the Truephone, but a big chunk was.
One second.
Sorry about that.
no, it's okay.
I'm glad you're feeling better.
So let's talk about some of the equipment.
I think we've got, know, equipment is really seemingly the big topic these days.
You know, probably nothing more than paddles.
And I think a lot of people are tuning into sort of paddle news and staying up to date.
(09:32):
And part of it comes from this guy right here.
So the Yulo mod, you know, TA-15.
This thing is incredible.
And I picked one up just for more posterity than anything else because I always wanted totry it and play it a little bit and I could see why it's banned.
(09:54):
And I was talking to a couple club pros and they were telling me exactly the same thingand their words were, it feels like cheating when you're using it.
So I think the news that sort of took the pickleball world by storm was the banning of themod.
And you know now what since you know there have been many people that have been you knowsort of really adopting it as their primary battle And now all of sudden it's no longer
(10:17):
legal And so I think you know there we have maybe some concerns from you know notnecessarily rec players But maybe I guess but primarily the you know pros and people
looking to go pro.
You know now what?
like do those those wins still count?
This just affect my record now that this thing's bad.
I mean it'll be officially sunsetted in July of this year.
(10:38):
So you got a few months to to adapt or adjust to a new paddle and I think you have tillMarch 1st to trade it in and get a discount on the new models for EULA.
But you know.
in now that you just bought it if you wanted to.
okay.
well I can't trade it in, but I can get 50 % off the new version.
(11:00):
I mean, I don't want to trade it in.
actually...
Exactly, exactly.
It's a souvenir that we can hang on the wall behind you, Patrick, and then you can kind ofjust hold it there as like a relic of like olden days past.
And...
Certainly have a lot of fun with it, but...
(11:20):
don't have to get any extra power as I said.
It's an interesting panel.
So it's legal to play until the end of July or beginning of July.
Beginning of July as I understand, forget the exact date.
God, it keeps changing.
Sorry, March 1st, I believe is the deadline for registering your paddle and qualifying forthe discount.
(11:45):
at least July 27th, don't quote me on that, Patrick.
I'll look it up here while we're going through this, but yeah, absolutely.
it's, it's eligible to be played in the PPA tour, MLP, CMPL, the Canadian ones, CanadianCMPA pro tours, CMPL, all that, assume until that date.
And I think all of the tours are going to go with the same date.
(12:08):
And it's also eligible to be played in your regular USAPA or Pickleball Canada, PickleballOntario tournament.
Okay, until the same date, I'm assuming, right?
July 1st.
Okay.
So again, I don't have one, so I don't have to worry about it.
All of my paddles are currently legal.
(12:29):
And yeah, yeah.
I'm playing a tournament in February, and I haven't ruled out using this as the paddle forthat tournament.
Now, maybe this is an opportunity for folks to get in touch with the show, whether it's onour social channels or however, and maybe we can do a little poll, perhaps, and say, you
know, should John be playing with this in February?
(12:51):
Yes or no?
Right?
So, I mean...
If we can figure out how to post a poll, we will.
Or just leave it in the comments.
In fact, by the way, by leaving it in a comment or something showing up as low battery,let me double check what it is before we.
(13:11):
What is that?
What's low?
Let me double check.
I don't want the whole thing to go down the drain.
Unfortunately, there's no pause button in this whole situation.
I do not know what device it is.
It's not telling me.
I see.
It is the laptop.
(13:32):
You keep talking about stuff.
I'm going to get the power plugged in and we may have to edit out, but I'll just go getpower so we're not going to die.
Okay, I think this is the highlight of the show so far, Patrick.
You know, just these funny little sort of things that happen along the way is all part ofthe adventure is how I see it.
(13:54):
We've got a lot going on in the world of pickleball these days.
We had all kinds of notes we were going to talk about, really the results of the Masterstournament.
There was a lot of activity there.
Some drama that I think has kind of been talked to death.
So for those that follow the PPA, certainly that was a tournament to watch.
(14:15):
If you didn't get a chance to see it, I would recommend going back to watch it.
Probably on YouTube is probably your best bet.
But watching the back and forth and the exchange with Ben Johns and Kuang Dong as well,it's just the shot heard around the world as Zane Navartal said.
(14:38):
There's so much going on when you're watching pickleball, but more so when you're engaged.
I didn't watch that whole tournament, but I did see, and we were fine with power now.
I did see Ben's shot.
guess, I guess basically it was one, not a, would you recall it?
(14:58):
He said it was a warning or you could think of it as a retaliation.
moment there's noise.
There we go.
and I've got a cat meowing outside my studio here, Patrick.
we have family out putting dishes away.
There we go.
(15:19):
And I've just lost my, there we go, there we go.
Now we're all set.
So I guess Kwan has been hitting some shots kind of close to people's heads and a certainlevel of just like any pro sport, there's a level of respect, you know, like hockey has
its own rules and some of them are enforced by the officials and some of them are enforcedby the players.
(15:43):
And in this case, nothing was enforced by officials, but.
Ben thought he would send a warning to Kwon by taking a mean, vicious cut at it and aimingright at him.
that ball would have gone about two miles if it didn't hit something.
(16:06):
But whether it's right or wrong, don't know.
Only pros know that, really, because they know their code.
As we see it here in hockey, the code, we don't know the code.
But it looked nasty at the time, I'll tell you.
It sure did.
It was part of the unspoken rule, like body shots are okay.
Like you can, can body bag the guy across the net, but you know, once you start gettingkind of above the shoulders is when it gets really dicey.
(16:33):
And that's when it's, you know, stop doing it to us.
Here's a warning.
If you're going to keep doing it, I'll do it back.
And that's what we saw there.
I think there was just maybe too much opinion from everybody involved after the fact thatkind of made it the big story that it was.
So yeah.
look at PPA promotes that, you know, the players promoted PPA promotes getting eyeballs onanything these days is, is seeming to be, what, matters, right?
(17:02):
So other, other paddle news.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know.
I don't really think about it.
I don't think that way because of my, maybe my age, but, I don't know.
But anyway, the way of the world right now is hot takes and anything to get a reaction, Iguess.
(17:23):
So hey, speaking of Ben, Ben and Colin have split up as players as well, as a team.
Ben has not announced his new partners yet.
Is that right?
not that I've heard, but I mean that could change by the time this thing airs, but youknow at last count I haven't heard anything but you know I will wait and see.
(17:48):
still partnering, I'm sorry to interrupt, I assume he's still partnering with AnnaliWaters.
I would imagine my gosh why would you play with anyone else?
Yeah.
why would he change that?
I don't know.
So I think we're only talking men.
So he and Colin won't be partners for the season.
They might play one-offs.
He'll announce who he's going to be with as Colin announced.
You know that?
(18:09):
He was exploring a couple different partners.
I think he had it shortlisted.
I don't know that he's officially announced and I don't want to steal this thunder.
Not that I know the answer, but certainly let him do it on his own.
But yeah, it's...
But yeah, we'll wait and see.
I think, you know, looking forward to a couple days from now when the Australian Openstarts and you'll be able to see for yourself at that point.
(18:31):
And so tune in.
I'm sure we'll have lots to talk about.
we're here, let me, we didn't really do much of an intro about the podcast in general, butwe will do a fast one right now again.
And we will ask of you folks if you're enjoying what you're hearing, if you want tosupport us at all, just, you know, give us a like, first of all, it just helps spread the
word.
It's just the way the algorithms work.
(18:53):
Give us a share, give us a comment, leave a comment.
And if you want to win a free paddle, to pickleballtoday.co.
slash win.
And we're giving away a pro level paddle, know, in the $200 range.
We've got a bunch of paddles here where they're just collecting dust here, except for the,one or two favorite ones.
(19:16):
And rather than sit around here, we might as well give them to people who want them.
And the people who want them that are our supporters are the ones they're going to getthem.
So go to there.
There's instructions on what to do.
It's all involving, helping sharing, liking, commenting, and all that.
You get more opportunities.
And believe me, because we are not a massive podcast yet before global domination.
(19:41):
we, you have a really good chance of winning, like maybe a one in a hundred or one in 50or, whatever.
mean, you know, maybe if we, get re rolling here, it'll be less, but for now you have agood chance of winning.
So go to pickleball today.
and hopefully your person is gonna get it.
(20:01):
We ship it from here, we pay for the shipping, they don't have anything, we just gotta getin contact with you.
We do that by email, you'll be on an email list, so stay on the email list or we have noway to contact you.
Because we don't ask for a phone upfront.
I'm gonna cough, so John, you keep rolling for a bit.
(20:24):
You bet.
I was also just going to kind add to that Patrick, that if you're listening to us onSpotify or any of your other podcast platforms, your favorite podcast platforms, give us a
five star or a five star review or like there.
It really helps kind of expand the show's reach and we can reach more audiences at thatpoint.
And who knows, you know, just the more the merrier the way we see it.
(20:45):
Yeah, yeah.
do want to give one quick shout out to my son Luke who has been promoting this toeverybody he talks to not only at his university but at his work and elsewhere.
So there was a lot of people asking when are you going to finally record it?
So here we are.
thanks Luke for the shout out.
to everybody that heard about this podcast through Luke, please make sure you like andshare and engage with us and help promote the show.
(21:08):
we may have a paddle for you here anyway, So now I'll get the old man to pay for it.
anyway, no, you very much, Luke.
We really appreciate it.
But yeah, we probably have one.
Anyway, does Luke play?
a little bit.
(21:28):
Him and a couple of his friends played with me over the summer and the fall, but he's busywith the university and his job and girls are more interesting than his old man playing
pickleball.
That type of thing.
But yeah, he does play.
He enjoys the game.
We'll have to drag him out to the club one these days, Patrick, and you can...
(21:49):
would be fun.
That'd be fun.
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
let me see.
And I'll mention that you mentioned Spotify again.
We are on every podcast hosting platform.
Apple, Amazon, audible, which I think that's cool.
I think that's cool.
I mean, unfortunately, you don't have to buy me a paper a subscription to us.
(22:12):
But if you have an audible subscription, it's right there.
Audible, I heart radio, I don't know, a bunch of others.
And so anytime we post now, the main main place that people see our podcast usually isYouTube to see the video format.
This goes out in audio and video is the same thing.
But YouTube is where that is.
(22:32):
And we have a.
playlist for the podcast on YouTube.
OK, so that's where you'll see us.
And that, again, once you start following, you'll get all the news you want.
So what do you think?
Should we talk about these paddles?
I think so, I think we've kind of kept people waiting long enough.
(22:54):
I'll start with a full disclosure here though Patrick, that I'm a carbon ambassador, so Imight be hyping up the carbon stuff a little more than others.
That's OK.
We're going to be realistic.
We're going to be realistic.
We'll give you your code, though, for sure.
Absolutely, so if anybody wants 10 % off any carbon gear use the promo code carbonjon.
(23:17):
So C-R-B-N-G-O-H-N.
and get 10 % off any purchase from Carbon.
You might want to purchase this new true form paddle once you hear Patrick talk about thepaces that he put it through and really the result of it.
And I only mentioned the ambassadorship as part of a background for why we have thispaddle now since the public release is not for a couple days yet, as you know, as Patrick
(23:42):
mentioned earlier.
So we were able to get a hold of the paddle beforehand because of my affiliation withCarbon.
And I'm still coming off a knee injury.
So I did get to bat it around a little bit but Patrick came to my house and picked it upand and here he is really putting it through the motions.
So
went through snowstorm and blizzard and everything else to get there.
(24:04):
So, well, let's talk about it.
I played with it for the last two days.
extensively on day one and about half of my two and a half hours yesterday.
First of all, I played two and a half hours yesterday.
That on its own is news.
I had last year, last winter in Florida.
(24:26):
I was playing two and a half hours fairly regularly, but dying near the end.
And then I wasn't able to do it.
I was off injured and all kinds of things that when I finally came back, even an hour wasa struggle.
So I noticed about a couple of weeks ago that my energy sag just completely went down thedrain in, it was slightly before carbon here, went down the drain after playing one hour.
(24:55):
And at the end of it, and I've been working on losing some, I'm always working on losingsome weight, but anyway, I realized afterwards that I just didn't have any, any energy in
me.
So probably a low blood sugar thing.
I'm not a scientist and don't know lots about it, but I thought, you know, I hadn't haddinner.
I didn't have a snack or anything during the game.
(25:18):
I was drinking water and I usually have the stuff in it to help.
What do you call that?
Electrolytes, they're like that, yeah.
but boy I had zero energy and I was dying.
So in the last couple weeks I've been very much concentrating on have my meal before Iplay a couple hours before usually but also take some snacks with it.
(25:42):
Now someday we'll find out some really good things to take as opposed to just what Ihappen to have in the house or maybe a good product that we can
share with somebody or a company that wants to tell us about them.
But right now I'm just saying have something and have a snack.
So I've just been using the sweet and salty bars or a protein bar or things like that.
(26:07):
But yeah, but that would be even a better choice probably, But anyway, the point I wasgetting to is gradually I've gone from dying at one hour to being able to play two and a
half hours.
And yeah, I was a little bit slower in the last 15 minutes, but I was really playing welleven right through the last 15 minutes.
(26:28):
Whereas before when I died, not only was I not playing well, I wasn't thinking well, Iwasn't doing anything well.
So the low blood sugar, if that's what it is, really does things to you.
So I was quite pleased to go two and a half hours.
I have no muscle pain, no anything pain.
If I was selling a product, I'd be selling it like crazy right now, but I'm not.
(26:51):
It's just the reality of actually thinking about what was going on and coming up with thesolution.
back to the, and again, someday we'll learn a bit more about some products and things likethat.
Now.
glad you're okay after that two and a half hour run.
Yeah, I honestly got it and I played really well.
(27:11):
So, you know, it's always my partners that are screwing up all the time.
don't know why.
Yeah, right.
Anyway, anyway, so I'm the true foam.
First of all, it's cool.
I won't get into it in a big way, but it looks it is a nice looking paddle cover.
(27:33):
So what's interesting about this paddle?
from the last version that the carbon used to have, which was, know, so it was the carbongear on the one side.
So what you're seeing on the one that Patrick has on the TruFoam is a real close-upversion of this from what I understand.
And so, yeah, it kind of creates that.
like your generic cover, but with the logo on it, right?
(27:55):
This one is certainly much more attractive and interesting.
So let's talk about this paddle before, and then first of all, what is different aboutthis?
The main thing that's different, and John, you can get into real specifics, is everypaddle, pardon me, just about every pickleball paddle made these days
(28:16):
has a honeycomb core on the inside.
So it's a honeycomb polymer or plastic, depending on what you want to call it, inside.
that honeycomb, excuse my coughing again, John.
That's alright, we're all kind of building seasonal.
can crush over time.
(28:37):
It doesn't always do it.
I've got paddles that I've used for a year and a half that have not done it, but it can.
And by crushing, that means all of a sudden it has flexed then in places that it didn'thave it before.
If you push down on a paddle, if it crinkles and you can hear noises in there, that meansit's crushed or what the other term is delaminated.
(29:03):
Okay, this paddle is 100 % unique, one of two in the world now that is not made that way.
There were other types of paddles before, wooden and that, you know, aside, but of thismodern contemporary paddle, this is now made with a solid piece of a proprietary foam on
(29:27):
the inside from the entire head right down through
the handle is one piece of foam.
And the type of foam is a proprietary foam made, cooked up by carbon.
The other thing about the foam, now we could maybe add a photo if we have it now or later,is it has little slots here and there, like a little dash of a slot here and here, all the
(29:54):
way around, so that there's no foam in slots.
There's holes here and there.
And that allows the core, the metal part of it to have a wee bit of a flux.
Okay, now you don't notice a flux.
If you squeeze the paddle, you notice a little bit.
But it's not like this is like a trampoline the way maybe your mod is.
(30:18):
Okay, but this is just a yeah, nice, yeah, if you have it, great.
If not, don't worry about it.
We can add it in later.
Alright, come here.
of one piece.
The nice thing is it's one piece.
So what that does and what I noticed when I played is it just felt consistent.
It felt very solid.
(30:39):
The paddle did not feel hard.
It did not feel harsh.
It has a very nice grip to it.
And I will, as far as playing and me playing, I've had two days and I had two differentdays.
So this is why you want to try a paddle out.
for more than one day.
(31:01):
Because you have good days and bad days.
Now the paddle doesn't, but you don't want to have the greatest day in the world and buya, know, pick a number, $500 paddle, and then find out that was just a fluke.
And the next day you don't have that, and you you've got a $500 paddle that you don'twanna play.
(31:21):
So here's what went on when I played this.
For the first hour,
Day one was a two-hour session.
I know Yeah, but no 90 minutes for the first hour.
I was on fire.
I could not believe How good I played I could not miss a shot I could not miss a serve Myserves were as good as I've ever hit in my life.
(31:48):
And in fact, I would all say The pickleball was almost as good as I've ever hit now.
I have been playing a lot better recently
But boy, I was shocked at how good I played right off the bat.
Like from the very first serve, you would think it would take a while to get used tosomething.
It was great.
(32:09):
It was great.
Now, at the end, I think in middle, I switched paddles just for a few minutes.
Didn't notice a difference.
Then went back to this, and then I didn't play so well.
But the first, now maybe there's a fatigue kicking in.
Maybe.
If that's like the 85 minute mark, then that's possible.
(32:32):
I was shocked at how good now yesterday I played with it again.
there was two and a half hours again.
had a lot of good shots, but I didn't have a consistent like one hour of, you know,walking on water.
You pickle ball.
did not do that.
I was up and down with this and I was up and down with the next panel I played with.
(32:55):
but
Overall, I still played very well for two and a half hours But so I can't say that thispedal compared to I don't have the other one on the wall that I played with Yeah, I don't
have it sitting right there but anyway, I played a Selkirk Pro
(33:24):
thought it might be in your pickleball bag, Patrick.
Yeah, well, I wanted to decorate today, so I put it up.
So I played with this one as well.
And this really has evolved into one of my two main paddles right now.
The Selkirk Pro 14mm XL Halo.
excuse the voice guys, sorry, this has gone on for like a month.
(33:48):
And this is, you know, I've been playing this more than anything.
So I'm really used to this paddle.
And again, by sticking with a paddle for a while.
This one of two that I've been playing with the others a six zero paddle but by stickingwith one or two paddles instead of bopping around with different ones every week the way I
was last year when I was testing so many I've just gotten much more consistent with it.
(34:13):
So one versus the other I think this one is marginally better.
I would think marginally better
I would think this one is extremely good and it's a matter of just trying them.
Right?
This one's a lot less money, but also this one may break down.
(34:35):
It does have honeycomb inside.
Okay.
Now the outside is a Kevlar and carbon mix.
This is a, what's the outside of this?
I just assumed carbon fiber, right?
Yeah.
They both have similar grit, grit with a T.
But I would assume this paddle will last a bit longer than any other paddle out there.
(35:00):
So that's my take on it.
Now I mentioned there's two paddles.
Do you mind if I continue into?
I don't have the other one.
The other paddle literally, so this comes out officially on two days from now.
The other one came out today and that's a Selkirk 008.
Now Selkirk.
(35:21):
has a series called the Labs series.
The Labs series are no joke as far as price.
The list price are $333 US dollars.
They ship from the US.
They don't sell in retail that I know of in Canada.
And so by the time they get to Canada, oh, by the way, in this one, the carbon is when youget to Canada, it's about $400, isn't it, John?
(35:47):
It is, yeah, roughly.
So when you log onto the carbon site, it's going to ask you if you're viewing from Canada,and it'll automatically change the pricing accordingly.
you can see there, yeah, it's in, once the exchange rate and everything, it's around 400.
But definitely worth it, as you heard from Patrick.
So...
Yeah.
So, so that was 400.
This is 189.
(36:09):
But the new and the new lab is one though.
It works out to in Canadian dollars for people in Canada, 500, uh, with all the shippingand everything else.
Whereas if you're in the States, it's 333 us and the shipping's free and there's nobrokerage and there's no duty and customs and all that stuff.
So 500 bucks is a big goal for anybody in any sport.
(36:31):
I know.
Well, certainly for a retired senior.
Let me put it that way.
I'm on a different budget than John is.
And so I'm not spending $500 on a single paddle.
For me, now look at, I've got a lot of paddles.
I don't want to collect paddles anymore.
I may have gone through that phase.
(36:53):
I want to paddles that I'm going to really play.
So I want to play with them for a bit, I've been doing with this.
And I may get one of these.
And like I've been doing with this.
Okay.
So do I think this is better?
Yeah, probably.
Is it twice as good?
Well, no battles twice as good.
(37:14):
But it's a matter of what suits your game.
Right?
It's really a matter of what suits your game.
And yeah, I mean, you like to buy things online.
I like to buy things online.
It's easy.
But if you have a chance to try anything out, give it a try because it's hard for us toforecast.
what you would like.
And we're not trying to sell you anything or anything that you don't want, right?
(37:38):
Yeah, I know John is, but...
I'm teasing, I'm not trying to sell anybody anything.
I forgot though, I forgot to give you the comparison, John, about the 008.
The difference between this and the 008, I don't have an 008 in stock.
may have the labs up there.
No, I don't.
First of all, it comes in a cool metal case.
(37:59):
Yeah, like a little briefcase.
At least the one I saw does.
Now, whether that was a special version, I don't know.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
trying to go for?
and Yula did that with a Ben Johns edition $1,000 paddle last year.
Commemorative one.
So I don't know if every OOA comes with it.
(38:22):
Check the Selkirk Labs website.
But they do come with a Labs member.
don't know.
I don't have a box or anything.
They come in a nice box.
They come with a nice case.
I do have the case.
Big, nice.
beautiful case on these.
(38:43):
do have that, I will show that.
So the...
So this is your typical labs case.
And I think, there's even a fancier one.
Pardon me, that's the regular self-care case.
Here's the labs.
There I mean I got a lot of pals right?
So here's the labs case.
(39:05):
And.
all the really good Söklök stuff for anybody that didn't know.
Well, yeah, but I bought these things, right?
There's a typical, that's a Project 005.
And that's the case.
And they're pretty slick, right?
So it's very nice quilted inside and all that.
So they do it up.
They do it up.
(39:25):
But again, what it's worth to you, I don't know.
I haven't played the Eight.
The difference between the Eight and the Carbon though, is the Eight has a slight, again,
proprietary foam core solid foam Probably a little softer than the carbon foam, but itdoesn't have the slots so it's not going to break down just like You know again like the
(39:52):
honeycomb But it but it still has some give to it, but that give isn't oriented To the youknow the interior versus exterior.
It's the entire bit of foam that entire hunk of foam
is one solid piece with no slots cut into it.
And that's about it.
(40:12):
There might be, I think, little bit of, again, exterior foam around the edge, from what Iunderstood.
I don't know if we can see that.
this, maybe I'll just pull it back a little bit.
But you can see, yeah, you can see the carbon true foam there.
The voids in there are they're holes in the paddle itself, whereas the seltzerk on theother side is one solid piece of foam.
(40:40):
Now what,
what carbon has done, and which I thought was really clever, is by them using these sortof gaps in the actual core, they've created a broader sweet spot.
Now, on the paddle itself, you can kind of see there's this dot pattern, and it's moreaesthetic than anything else, but it kind of emphasizes where that sweet spot is.
(41:05):
not only a really cool look, also really shows how big that sweet spot is.
Even in an elongated paddle, like we've got the Carbon TrueFoam 1 here.
I'll be getting the 2 and the 3 as well, but for the shape of the 1, it gives you a muchbroader sweet spot than you had historically with the other Carbon 1s, whether it the
original or the 1X.
(41:26):
And so I found it to be pretty forgiving all around.
I thought the idea of the slots around it was cool.
Until I played the 008, I mean, I can't really compare how they play, right?
I won't do that.
That's not fair to anybody.
But then I would know which one I like better.
(41:47):
And I like 400 bucks better than 500 bucks.
I know that.
But that's about it.
So let's see.
Anything up to it?
Let me.
listening right now, send him one of the 008 so he can properly test it and he can do acomparison on the TrueFoam and the 008.
That's what I heard there.
We would love it.
(42:09):
I'm not holding my breath, but we would love it.
And we'll try.
Yeah, we will definitely try and we'll do a real honest comparison.
John, first of all, again, let me remind people, give us a like, give us a share, leave usa comment or question or anything.
Future episodes, by the way, I think we're going to live stream them as well.
So that means you can type in questions on the fly.
(42:33):
and leave comments and call us names and do whatever you want to do on the fly and we willrespond.
We wanted to get one or two of these underway before we started adding that to it, but thecapability is there.
If you want to paddle, want a free paddle or at least a chance to win one and a very highlevel chance to win one, go to pickleballtoday.co.
(43:01):
Click on that, it'll tell you everything you want to do and the more of the things that itasks you to do, which are all just normal likes, comments, shares, know, that kind of
stuff.
Follows and whatever on whatever platform or subscribes even probably the best is onsubscribing on YouTube.
Do it there and then stay on the email list.
(43:22):
And when we draw the name at the end, which will be at the end of February.
We will get in touch with you and let you know what the paddle is and find your get youraddress from you so we can ship it out to you no charge.
Yeah, and Patrick has all those paddles behind him on his wall there.
mean, we should just give them all away.
Yeah, we just can't.
(43:43):
got those, I've got 25 or 30 in my closet that I was rifling through to find...
Like look at the most expensive one I had.
is sitting lonely in my closet.
No, I don't play with it.
I did for a while.
(44:04):
And just like everything else, just, you find out what you like and you find out what youdon't, and it wasn't my cup of tea.
Right?
Anything else, John, on your end?
Yeah, a couple things.
I just, while we're on the topic of products here too, just before we got on to record theshow today, I got an email from Yula announcing the Agassi partnership and the
(44:31):
collaboration that they have there with Andre Agassi and Yula.
So I guess that paddle is now being released soon.
Anybody you want to send us one let Patrick put it through the paces and we'll see howhard he can hit with it if you can manage to play two and half hours with that or if it's
gonna you know He'll forget all about time and play for four straight hours, and we'll seebut yeah, it's
(44:52):
and our contact info is on on pickleball today.co.
That's right, so reach out to us with any new equipment suggestions and we're happy to putit through the paces.
I've got two other pieces of equipment I want to talk about, Patrick.
One is really the release of the carbon balls that came along with the paddles too.
So I've been playing with this one and not much of a difference in my view between theFranklin X40 and this one, but it's cool branding so I kind of like it.
(45:21):
So I figure what the heck I'll buy six pack and there we go.
played with it.
It was fine.
It was good.
mean, again, nobody's, you know, going out of their way to buy a particular brand of ball,but people, mean, the industry standard, at least where we're playing, by the way, is
indoor court, but on an outdoor surface.
So that's why the and the Franklin ball is probably the most popular in that environment.
(45:42):
I play crown pickleball.
We are an affiliate for Crown and it's all on our website.
But Crown, coming to Canada for instance, only ships in bulk, not individual.
Yeah, yeah, but it's okay.
mean, I've been handing them out at the clubs, people like them.
(46:03):
You you end up not playing with a ball forever.
I mean, they all go out around at some point or crack or whatever.
I found Crown's outdoor ball, which is what we play indoors, is fine.
I found their indoor ball.
was cracking a lot at the other club I play with.
So I'm not recommending their indoor ball, but I do recommend their outdoor ball.
(46:26):
But either one, whatever.
And you had some glasses you wanted to mention too, and then I've got the ones that I'mplaying with.
Yeah, yeah, so I don't wear glasses like Patrick, so I don't have that safety aspect.
So I've been really looking for proper pair of safety glasses to play with.
(46:47):
Last summer, I did take a ball just above the eye and I had a substantial bruise to showfor it.
It was a bit of an eye-opener, if you will.
How's that for you?
Yeah, thank you.
But really, it gave me pause for thought that I should be taking...
my eye safety a lot more seriously.
So I ordered a pair of nice head glasses, but what I found was they were fogging up on mea little bit and I didn't particularly like that.
(47:12):
So I was on the lookout for something else.
And then I saw another member at the club playing with these goggles that were kind ofhalf and half split, but they were open in the middle.
But they were still a little bit distracting, but they did work and certainly served apurpose.
And I felt a lot more confident.
I tend to play a bit of a harder game and oftentimes my opponent will kind of match thatenergy and then you just kind of open yourself up for an errant ball and you know want to
(47:37):
be safe about it.
What I did find was these.
These kitchen blockers made famous probably by no one more so than Jeanne Bouchard whorecently started wearing these and when I purchased them on Saturday the fellow at the pro
shop I was talking to said he can't keep these in stock.
That as soon as
Jean Bouchard started playing with these, they sold out, they can't make them fast enough.
(48:03):
absolutely, but it wasn't even an endorsement or paid or otherwise.
Well, I guess it might have been, I don't know if it was paid or not, but you know, shewears it well.
And you know, it was just, you know, something worth looking into.
So I bought a pair, they retail for about $80 here.
but they fit well, they're easily adjustable, they have extra pads if you want to kind ofhave them spaced, further off your face or different parts, really they're quite
(48:27):
adjustable and suitable to any shape of face, I have a bit more of eyes, know, spot aroundmy eyes I guess, but I'm really looking forward to getting back in and playing with these
and having that confidence to not have to worry about my eyes and focus solely on my game,but also not have the lenses fog up.
Right, right.
where I think the difference is going to be in these for me.
(48:48):
So stay tuned.
We'll talk about it next time and see how they play for me.
But I'm pretty excited about it.
And I do wear distance, well I wear bifocals, I'm about to have surgery that I won't havebifocals anymore.
But what I've done is I'm noticing I'm not needing the distance glasses element withPickleball now.
(49:09):
If I'm playing in good light.
In our club, a court in Kitchener has very good light.
Actually too bright in a few spots, right?
There's some blind spots because they're not diffused enough.
But.
on court three, I think that's the big one.
yeah, yeah.
But I have now gone to these glasses.
(49:29):
These are not a prescription, but I am seeing just fine with these.
And they are not inexpensive glasses.
They're like photo gray.
They will get darker under if you're outside in the sunlight.
Inside, they haven't been getting darker.
don't know how sexy I look with these.
(49:49):
But I know that I
Everybody else looks sexy when I am wearing them because I can really I'm seeing well withthem and I honestly feeling More confident standing there because yeah, we're all I hate
to say it but we're all a bit of hackers once in a while and We all make mistakes.
Nobody's paying us, you know, like Jeannie Bouchard money to play pickleball and Yeah, andshe makes mistakes You know, so but but us regular folk are out there
(50:20):
trying to have fun, trying to have a good time.
we don't, you know, there's enough ways to get injured in any sport.
You don't need to do it unnecessarily.
And for me, this was, these are, I think it's called Rock Brothers or something like that.
It's on Amazon.
I'll dig it out.
think it's like, they weren't like 25 or 30 bucks and they just are fine.
(50:43):
They do not have a you know, frame around like yours do, which would be better.
Although I also am wearing a cap all the time.
So I got a lot of protection here.
The ball's coming out my eye.
Chances are it's going to hit the brim or hit in here.
If it really was going to sail, it might pop that lens back.
(51:03):
So unlike your eye blockers would.
But I feel confident with them.
I can see well.
They haven't been fogging up inside at all.
Like I literally didn't know I was playing with them on day two.
And, but they did fog up when I was playing outside in the summer.
(51:23):
Now some of that was real hot weather too.
So like we had some 40 degree days and I was out there for a little bit during that.
By the way, we didn't really mention, we, you know, we are talking, we've been talkingabout products and things like that.
We are both based in Canada.
But you know what, about a third or two thirds, in fact, lately it has been two thirds ofour viewers are in the US.
(51:50):
So by default, we think in Canadian dollars, because that is what we spend.
Any link we have, you can buy it in US dollars, you can buy it in Canadian dollars.
So we get country specific only because we live in a particular country.
Obviously, the currency makes a big difference in the dollar.
(52:12):
value especially right now the Canadian dollars around 65 cents US so you can add what 3540 percent on to any US dollar price to come up with the Canadian right but that's why we
do it.
like I was gonna say, just even with the TrueFoam paddle in the US, it's retailing forabout 270.
(52:34):
And I'm paying just over 400, I think it was like 402 is what it worked out to after theexchange.
And so it is pretty dramatic, but yeah, to your point.
that, the Carbon, or sorry, the Salkirk 08, 333 in the U.S.
There was a slight early discount right now.
I can't remember how much it was, but anyway, all that by the time it got here, not justthe dollar conversion, but shipping and everything else, it was over 500 bucks.
(53:01):
Plus there might be some duty on that one because of the price.
A hundred dollar paddle.
If you order a hundred dollar U.S.
paddle and shipping in from
United States there's not going to be any duty on it.
But if you order a $333 paddle there will be.
So, so I think what Patrick is trying to say is all our US listeners for every five starlike that you give this podcast, it's basically, you know, an additional 30 % liking, you
(53:27):
know, yeah, it's, it's 130%, not just 100 % like, so.
play favorites.
I could make it.
I could do that.
U S get favorites in our contest, but I'm not going to do that.
Canada is our roots.
Canada is our initial audience and we are still here in Canada.
the way the weather's been lately, I wouldn't mind not being.
(53:50):
And, but anyway, that's what it is.
So when we talked, I just wanted to explain, especially can we didn't do an official introof the podcast.
We talk Canadian pickleball, US pickleball, the pro tournaments, the products, ourproducts are products.
They're not into, you know, they're not country specific when we get into tips and wehaven't done that lately.
That's again, not country specific.
(54:13):
So we've got lots of content that is valuable for everybody.
and even when we talk about our Canadian tournaments.
the pro tours in Canada, a lot of those players are ending up in the PPA and major leaguepickleball as well.
so it's think of, think of like triple A baseball versus pro baseball.
(54:36):
This is, this is kind of triple A and I think the local, the Canadian leagues recognizethat, right?
But their players are going on to great heights.
Some of them doing very, very well in
Major League Pickleball MPPA, know, Jeannie Bouchard doing well as well, a bunch ofplayers.
(54:58):
So, and we're going to have some of them on our podcast.
And by the way, and again, Catherine Parenteau, a Canadian, you know, has been number oneand number two in the world in various discipline blends over the last few years.
Now she plays with Annali Waters, but she's also been, and Annali's had a number whenthey've played
(55:18):
singles against each other but she's, Katherine's won a share of golds and they've bothwon almost all the golds up until this year in the women's doubles.
But yeah, great player.
Katherine's wonderful.
We have a great interview of her on the Pickleball Today website or on our YouTube channelas well.
(55:42):
She's a lovely person and we also have some of her lessons.
And we'll put more of them on.
So I think, John, I think we've covered everything,
I think for today we have, yeah.
So I mean, think really what we're kind of hoping is that everyone's gonna kind of tune inmore often.
We're hoping to just have a regular cadence of our episodes here, increase the frequencyof our recording here.
(56:05):
Now that Patrick and I are kind of full force on this, we're looking forward to talkingabout a number of things, as Patrick mentioned earlier, really having a couple of guests
on, a couple of pros that he's already in contact with.
and some other additional tips, so whether you're playing at a very competitive level oryou're just being introduced to pickleball, there's a little something for everybody,
(56:26):
whether you're here in Canada or in the US or elsewhere.
Certainly we'll be covering topics around MLP, PPA, CNPL, really just league play.
You can keep up to date on some of our travelings, the anecdotes here.
Certainly Patrick's thorough testing of products, whether it's safety gear, paddles, orotherwise.
(56:47):
But absolutely we'll we'll try to share as much information as we can together keep itengaging and interesting and exciting and and absolutely we'll be counting on on all our
listeners and viewers here to to ensure that you give us those likes and and make sure youenter to win that paddle at pickleballtoday.co slash win you
I will say, John, we're talking about regular recording.
(57:09):
Our next one will be two weeks from now.
However, I may be on a cruise ship and I may have to pre-record a portion from the ship sothat you and you'll host and just throw my portion on because it's pretty unreliable.
I tried it before connecting from the ship for a live podcast.
(57:30):
So we'll do what we can do.
you
But if we do it, we're going to be on Holland America.
It's the official cruise ship of the PPA tour of all things.
yeah.
And I have played pickleball on their ships before.
one has, the last one I played had two courts.
This one only has one, unfortunately, but it's a bigger ship and a newer ship, but theyhave some with more courts.
(57:53):
Anyway, and I don't even know for sure if I'm on it.
I'm on standby.
I will only find out three days before the cruise starts, whether I'm going or not.
So one way or the other, we're gonna have the podcast in two weeks and John will behosting and I'll be either co-hosting or mailing it in with a video.
So if Patrick is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, you know that he's on the cruise.
(58:16):
We'll record two episodes and one he'll be in his usual attire and the other one will bein a Hawaiian shirt and you'll know that he's actually off-site.
big park freezing.
Yeah.
The way it's been like, it's been cold.
Anyway, look, hey, wherever you are guys, thank you for tuning in.
I hope you are warm, having a good time.
(58:40):
I hope you're playing some good pickleball and it will get better this year.
If you're feeling well, congratulations.
If you're not feeling well, pickleball will do it, but be patient.
And stay healthy, stay calm, stay cool, and enjoy your pickleball.
And we'll see you again in a couple weeks.
(59:00):
Thank you, everybody.
See you later.
Bye-bye.
Bye bye.
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