When Teams Become Family

Some photos capture a win.

Others capture what it took to get there.

This one does both.

At first glance, it’s a group of smiling pickleball players in matching red shirts, paddles in hand, trophy front and centre. But look a little longer and you start to see what really matters — connection, camaraderie, and the kind of shared experience that doesn’t end when the final point is played.

This was the Country vs Metro event, and while there was a trophy on the line, the real victory was standing shoulder to shoulder at the end of it. Players from different clubs, backgrounds and regions coming together as one team. Some had known each other for years, others met for the first time that weekend — yet by the end, it felt like they’d been playing together forever.

That’s one of the quiet strengths of pickleball. It has a way of fast-tracking relationships. Doubles games force communication. Rotations break down cliques. Shared nerves, shared laughs, shared mistakes — they all build trust quickly. Before you know it, you’re not just playing next to someone, you’re backing them.

There’s also something beautifully unpolished about moments like this. The mismatched socks. The sunburnt faces. The player sprawled on the court in front, celebrating in their own way. It’s real. It’s human. It’s sport without the layers of seriousness that sometimes strip the joy away.

Kitchen to Court has always been about these moments. The ones that don’t start with trophies or titles, but with people saying yes. Yes to travelling. Yes to representing something bigger than themselves. Yes to turning up for teammates they may have only just met.

This photo is proof that competition doesn’t have to come at the cost of connection. You can play hard, care deeply, and still laugh at the end of it all. In fact, that’s when sport is at its best.

Because long after the scores fade and the paddles are packed away, what stays with you is this — the people you stood beside, the memories you created, and the feeling that for a moment, you were part of something that mattered.

From kitchen tables to centre courts, this is what showing up looks like.