Players get ready to deflect a ball at Urban Rec's dodgeball league on Jan. 16, 2024.

(JESSE TOMAS / iNFOnews.ca)

When some people think of dodgeball they think of horrible high school memories, or the Ben Stiller movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, but there's a group in Kelowna making a “happy-go-lucky” community around the sport.

Keith Bennett has been a coordinator and player with Okanagan Urban Rec’s dodgeball social league for eight years. Bennett says the league is a welcoming and positive way to meet people and get some exercise.

“I love this sport in this league, it's not super competitive, everybody is just here to have a good time,” Bennett said.

Urban Rec has been running dodgeball leagues for about 20 years. There are two seasons, the winter season which began on Jan. 7, and a fall season which begins in September. The league typically has 10 to 12 coed teams of six and each person pays $50 for 12 weeks of games.

Bennett said the league has developed its own rules for the game and systems for communication between teams to keep the league fun and friendly.

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“When I first started there was kind of a lot of drama, people almost fighting in the parking lot. Now we don’t have any of that. We weed those people out and they weed themselves out most of the time,” Bennett said.

The league is self-officiated so teams sometimes disagree.

“Instead of yelling across at each other we have the captains come forward and if they can’t calm down then I step in,” he said.

A lot of players return year after year, even those who didn’t like dodgeball in school.

Players scrambling for a ball to start off a game of dodgeball at Urban Rec's dodgeball league on Jan. 16, 2024.

(JESSE TOMAS / iNFOnews.ca)

“I didn’t like it in high school at all, but I like it here. I started in my early 20s, I keep coming back and the same people keep coming back,” Bennett said. “People of course have families and then they come back and bring their kids so there’s always kids running around.”

The league is about socializing as much as it's about dodgeball.

"A lot of people hangout and go for a drink after," Bennett said. 

People are encouraged to come down and give it a shot.

“You only live once, give it a try. You might like it you might not but you never know unless you come out,” he said.

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