We can’t all be the Tom Brady of our sport, but North Dakota goaltender Zach Driscoll feels he has a couple of irons in the fire.
A graduate student who played the last three hockey seasons at Bemidji State, Driscoll in the summer of 2020 was introduced to the sport of pickleball by fellow Twin Cities-area native and former Colgate forward John Snodgrass.
Pickleball is a paddle sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping pong. Players, either competing in singles or doubles, use plastic balls with holes drilled into them.
“After John would finish workouts at his gym back home, he’d always go play pickleball,” Driscoll said. “He kept trying to invite me, and I was like, ‘Nah, it’s kind of an old person’s sport,’ but one day, I went and liked it.
“This last summer, when I really got into it, I was taking online classes and had a lot of free time, and a buddy back home was looking for a job, so we had a lot of free time together and went to courts about 5 or 10 minutes from my house. We met about 30 people who took us in and taught us the game.”
Driscoll spent around 15 hours per week playing pickleball that summer. When he arrived in Grand Forks, N.D., this July, UND assistant Karl Goehring connected Driscoll with Grand Forks Herald reporter and pickleball enthusiast Brad Schlossman, who matched Driscoll with former UND standout and current San Jose Sharks forward Jasper Weatherby.
More often than not, they played together on the same side of the court.
“I was definitely a better doubles player than Jasper, but I don’t think I ever had a winning series against him in singles,” Driscoll said. “He always kicked my butt, because he’s 6-foot-4 and his arms reached the frickin’ sidelines when he stood in the middle, so it’s hard to get a ball by him.”
In August, Driscoll and Weatherby placed second in a doubles tournament hosted by the local Grand Cities Pickleball Club. Winning a medal there, in an advanced-level competition, was an achievement long in the making for Driscoll.
“In the group that I play with back home, we were playing with people who either had flexibility in their jobs or were retired,” Driscoll said. “I remember that, in my first week, I played against a guy who was celebrating his 81st birthday, and we lost.
“My buddy, who’s an athletic 25-year-old, and I lost our first doubles match to a pair of 75-year-old women, and we didn’t score a single point. It’s a humbling experience.”
That feeling happens less often now for Driscoll, who took advantage of the NCAA’s new name, image and likeness regulations to become an ambassador for the pickleball equipment manufacturer Selkirk. He initially reached out to around five pickleball equipment companies, and Selkirk sent him two paddles.
He’s also spreading the word about a sport he’s more widely known for, as several skills shown on the pickleball court are transferable onto the ice.
“What I take away from pickleball is the mental side, where if you have a bad shot, you just kind of forget about it and reset,” Driscoll said. “As a goalie, that’s something I have to do every game, unless it’s a shutout, but it’s about being able to move on to the next play and just focus on what’s next.
“That, and when you get up to the (pickleball) net, there’s a lot of hand-eye and reaction-time stuff that goes on within a point. When I’m playing and people try to blast the ball at me and I get my paddle on it, they’re like, ‘What? How’d you get that?’ I just say, ‘I’m play hockey, and I’m a goalie.’ They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, that makes sense.’”
Niagara felt that way last weekend, when Driscoll made 18 saves in both games of a UND sweep in Grand Forks. On Saturday, he stopped every shot he faced in a 4-0 win.
It’s hard for any college hockey player to know how much further their on-ice careers will take them. Whenever Driscoll hangs up his skates, though, he sees himself playing pickleball competitively. Top older professional pickleballers aren’t unheard of, and even beyond that, Driscoll sees himself as one of those older players showing newcomers the ropes.
“I’m convinced that pickleball will be an Olympic sport,” Driscoll said, “And it’s a lot easier on the knees playing doubles in pickleball than it is to play goalie in your 40s.”
