Road Tennis continues cross-Canada stretch after local launch

August 13, 2026 · 0 Comments

Four years after its Canadian launch at Aurora Heights Public School, road tennis, a sport which originates in the Caribbean, continues its serve across Canada.

The Barbadian sport, a variant on lawn tennis which has been hailed for its accessibility and affordability, began making inroads in Aurora and York Region, and later Peel Region, back in 2023 when proponents partnered with the York Region District School Board to bring the activity to local students.

At the time, Sport Aurora president – and Ward 1 Councillor – Ron Weese said he hoped from its local launch the sport would become as ubiquitous across Canada as road hockey, and the current trajectory of the sport indicates its well on the way.

Since then, the sport has made inroads into the Toronto District School Board and, this past spring, was introduced to school boards in British Columbia.

“We’ve signed a partnership agreement with the TDSB, which is incredible,” says Ron Kellman, one of the lead proponents of the sport in Canada, and a resident of Aurora. “Usually, it takes years to become a partner with TDSB; now we’ve started a partnership agreement [in October] for 39 months and we’re working with the phys-ed department to promote road tennis inside the TDSB.”

Some of the factors of road tennis Kellman says appeals to school boards beyond York and Peel Regions is the affordability of equipment for schools “in these times where everybody is counting pennies” and that it’s inclusive and barrier-free.

“One thing Principals have said to me is the beauty of road tennis is when you walk into a phys-ed program, kids are not sitting waiting to play. You can have an entire class playing at the same time. That’s what they love – no waste of time.”

But there are other important factors at play here which make it valuable in both staying active and staying connected to one’s heritage.

“A young man of about 12-years-old came up to me and said he wanted to be a professional road tennis coach, and that shook me to the core because you don’t expect 12-year-old kids to say these things,” recalls Kellman. “A young man with autism played road tennis for the first time and his brother said he had never seen him so happy. They went out and got some road tennis stuff for him, and that was really a moment, bringing a smile to a child’s face with autism. Incredible.

“A Grade 9 student in Vaughan was talking to the head of Curricular Activities at the York board and they called me over and said, ‘Ron, we want you to hear something.’ [The young woman said] ‘This is our sport.’ That shook me, too – some young girls in Grade 9 [in BC] said the exact same thing and I was like, ‘What do you mean this is our sport?’ These were Black girls and, for them, seeing something like road tennis come to their school with us teaching it was encouraging for them to say, ‘We want to play and we want to continue to play.’ We had never heard that before. If they’re seeing it in Toronto and they’re seeing it out in Vancouver, they don’t know each other, but these girls are the same age. There’s something there for young women with road tennis; I can speculate, but I want them to tell me.”

As much as road tennis keeps kids active, it also facilitates cultural exchange.

“A lot of the children that we’ve seen, they’ve got roots in the Caribbean, so when they see the sport, they start asking questions about it. They say, ‘Oh, my mom and dad is from such-and-such-a place,’ and that’s where the conversation starts. We’ll tell them about the relationship with Canada and Barbados, where Air Canada has been flying for 75 years unbroken, and it’s really incredible the role Canada has played in the development of some of these nations.”

Kellman also puts particular pride in the role Aurora has played in the spread of road tennis beyond the Caribbean as well.

“It brings the biggest smile to my face,” he says. “Everything started in Aurora, which we never anticipated. York Regional Police is involved, and their headquarters is in Aurora. The school board is involved, and its headquarters is in Aurora. Aurora has been the backbone for road tennis with our involvement.

“This is a sport we can take across Canada,” he continues, adding he would like to see more support from municipalities across York Region in offering the sport for more participants. “We keep knocking on the doors of York Region, Aurora, Stouffville – they don’t answer, yet still, the York Regional Police were the first ones to say, ‘Look, we want this.’ We’re now going into year four with our annual event with the YRP. Who would have thought that a sport out of Barbados would have caught the attention of the YRP and the community? This is stunning for us.”

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter