Canada's Junior Team Is Going to the 2026 Pickleball World Cup
On August 30, six young Canadians will walk onto the courts in Da Nang, Vietnam for the 2026 Pickleball World Cup. Two weeks ago, that wasn't going to happen. The juniors had qualified on merit, the registration deadline had come and gone without the funding to cover it, and Team Canada Pickleball had already announced publicly that the team would not be attending. This is the story of the two weeks in between — and of the part of it that still isn't finished.
🇨🇦 The fundraising isn't finished. The juniors are covered. Canada's Open and Senior teams are still raising the money to get to Da Nang — their GoFundMe is here, and it's open now.
What happened
The juniors on Team Canada Pickleball earned their spots. They played, they qualified, and they were preparing to represent the country at the biggest event the sport has. What they didn't have was the money to get there.
Unlike most national programs in this country, Team Canada Pickleball runs without a funding structure behind it. Flights, accommodation, entry fees, coaching, uniforms — it's carried by the athletes, their families, and whatever community support the program can pull together. For a roster of teenagers travelling to Southeast Asia for eight days, that number gets large quickly.
It didn't come together in time. The registration deadline passed. The program posted the news publicly: the junior team was out. For a group of kids who had already done the hard part, that was supposed to be the end of it.
The six going to Da Nang
Team Canada Pickleball's U18 Youth Team for the 2026 World Cup is six athletes, captained by Jacob Bolkowy. These are the players who were told they weren't going:
Look closely at that graphic and you'll notice something we're happy about: not one of them is holding an Apollo paddle. We didn't send gear, we didn't ask for a photo, and there was no agreement attached to any of this. They play what they play. That was never the point.
Why we stepped in
We saw the announcement the same way most of the Canadian pickleball community did — as something that simply shouldn't have been allowed to stand. So we covered the gap and the juniors were re-entered.
There wasn't a lot of deliberation involved.
"Those kids earned their spot and the idea that they'd have to watch the World Cup from home over a funding gap just didn't sit right with us. We're a Canadian company built by Canadian players. Supporting the next generation of them is kind of the whole point."
— TJ De Villa, Co-Founder & Director, Apollo Pickleball Inc.
Apollo exists because of Canadian pickleball. We were started here, we design and engineer our paddles here in Edmonton, and we sell exclusively to players in this country. A junior national team that qualifies and then can't travel isn't a problem for six families — it's a problem for the whole sport in Canada, and for every kid who watches it happen and quietly decides the ceiling is lower than they thought.
🇨🇦 To be precise about our part: the contribution unlocked the door — it got the team back past a deadline that had already closed. Getting a full roster to Da Nang, housed, coached and fed for a week, took a much wider effort, and a lot of people put their shoulder into it after that point. We were one piece of it.
Maria courtside with her kids. Used with permission.
Maria has spent years advocating for the Canadian game at every level, and she was instrumental in bringing this together — connecting the right people at the right moment and making sure the situation reached us while there was still time to do something about it. Plenty of athletes lend their name to Canadian pickleball. Fewer pick up the phone.
She's also a mother of two, which we suspect is not unrelated. The juniors heading to Da Nang are the first generation in this country to grow up with Canadian pros to look up to. That only compounds if they get to keep playing.
The gap hasn't closed
This is the part we'd rather you take away from this than anything about us.
The juniors are going. The Open and Senior teams are still fundraising, and the structural problem that nearly kept the kids home is still sitting underneath the entire program. It will be sitting there again next cycle unless something changes. A country that produces this much talent shouldn't be running its national teams on last-minute rescues.
There's also a deadline on this one. The teams fly at the end of August — flights, accommodation and entry fees all have to be paid before then, not after. Money that arrives in October doesn't help anyone get on a plane in August.
If you run a business in this sport, or you're a player who wants to help, Team Canada Pickleball has an active GoFundMe for the road to the World Cup. Contributions of any size go directly toward getting Canadian athletes on the court in Da Nang.
From Team Canada Pickleball
Team Canada Pickleball shared the news on Instagram, along with an open invitation to anyone else who wants to be part of getting the Open, Senior and Junior teams to Vietnam:
Follow the team in Da Nang
The 2026 Pickleball World Cup runs August 30 to September 6 in Da Nang, Vietnam. Canada's Junior, Senior and Open teams will all be competing. Follow Team Canada Pickleball on Instagram for results and updates from the ground — and we'll update this post when the team is home.
Go Canada.
The rest of the team still needs you.
Canada's Open and Senior teams are fundraising right now for the 2026 Pickleball World Cup. Whether you're a company, a club, or a player who's had a good season — this is where it goes furthest.
Apollo Pickleball is a paddle company designed and engineered in Edmonton, Alberta, and sold exclusively in Canada. See the paddles →
