1st Annual "Dink For Pink" Tournament

To see the full size photos, scroll to the botom of this post for the link.

The Cottonwood Recreation Center hosted the First Annual “Dink For Pink” Pickleball Tournament Sunday, January 8. Thirty-six players competed in a six-game round robin format.

Event entry fees and contributions raised over $1,300 to be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. ( https://www.bcrfcure.org/ )

“Dink For Pink” is our first pickleball tournament here in Cottonwood. We chose to support breast cancer research in support of one of our players who has breast cancer,” stated Tournament Chairwoman, Terri Clements, adding, “I had hoped it would be fun for all participants and that we would raise money for the cause. We did both so I consider it a huge success. We learned a lot from this first effort and look forward to an even better event next January and every January thereafter.”

Danny Santiago took First Place in “Dink For Pink”. Second place was a 3-way tie between Deb Calia, Peppy Bolfango and CJ Hoyt. Third Place was not awarded. Tournament top finishers were presented gift cards from donors: El Patio, Mai Thai On Main, Starbucks, Nature’s Pantry and Desert Dancer.

In addition to Clements, four volunteers helped stage the tournament. Cottonwood Recreation Services Supervisor Ryan Bigelow helped facilitate the tournament schedule and liability insurance. Cottonwood Recreation Center (CRC) Front Desk Supervisor Lorenda Yoke created the flyer.

“Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the country for many reasons such as socialization and exercise,” Clements noted, “But I think the greatest thing about it is that people of all ages can participate and have fun.”

Regular “drop in” pickleball hours at CRC are 8 AM to Noon, Monday through Saturday.

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Above is the news release we prepared for Cottonwood's "Verde Independent" newspaper.  It was a great tourney.  We finished 34th out of the 36 players and felt very fortunate not to finish in the actual last position.  Frankly, we expected to finish last and were totally prepared for that reality.  We were quite surprised to be a couple of notches above actual last.  The skill level of the tournament participants was amazing.  Who knew there were so many incredibly awesome pickleball players in this vicinity?

Here's a photo of me with the tourney winner Danny Santiago.  When we faced off with Danny on the other side of the net, I knew it was not going to go well.  He was the main reason we were skunked 9-0 in that game--the only game of six in which we were shut out.  There was a brief time when Danny and I thought we were going to get pair together.  It didn't work out and was a false alarm.  "IF" I would have been able to have one game with Danny on my side, I would have finished a lot higher than 34th, that's for sure.  

We created a Flickr album of some of the photos from the tournament.  It is located here: https://www.flickr.com/gp/thesnowbirds/iz5ot4