For Patty Jackson, 67, and George Frangos, 66, of London, Ont., what began as a casual pickleball game turned into something neither saw coming: a second chance at love.
“I told my friends, if I ever meet someone, he has to be six feet tall — I’m six feet tall — he has to play really good pickleball, and he has to walk on water, because, well, nobody walks on water, right?” said Jackson, during a video call from Greece.
Frangos, sitting next to her, laughed. “I promised her I can walk on water six months of the year, out here in the winter,” he added, referring to the frozen Canadian lakes he curls and skates on in winter.
Over the past few years, the couple has toured North America in a camper van, playing pickleball across 13 U.S. states, five Canadian provinces and parts of Mexico. Currently, they are enjoying a three-month stay in Greece, where they have joined a local pickleball club.
Jackson and Frangos were brought together by a pickleball community hosted by the Ontario Senior Games Association, a province-wide sports and games association for Ontarians aged 55 and older.
While the OSGA’s sports and activities offer physical and cognitive benefits, organizers say the real heart of the program is the social connection their events foster.
“I see [the socializing] as the most important aspect of what we’re doing,” said Vincent Lubrano, an OSGA board member and secretary.
“It’s more important than the competition.”
The meet cute
With districts covering all parts of the province, the OSGA has something for all senior Ontarians. It offers its members the opportunity to compete in more than 35 sports and activities at the district, provincial and national level.
Every year, districts host winter and summer games. Summer activities include golf, beach volleyball, pickleball and tennis. The winter games include hockey, indoor volleyball, and downhill and cross‑country skiing.
Local districts feed into Ontario-wide tournaments, held every other year. Top players can advance to Canadian national championships, where teams from similar senior provincial associations compete.
Jackson, who retired at 54 and first got involved with OSGA pickleball at the invitation of a friend, says she was a total novice when she started.
“I’d never played pickleball … and now I have played with them for 13 years — it’s been a great journey,” she said.
For his part, Frangos had tried pickleball in a small seniors’ program in B.C. before the pandemic. But he deepened his involvement after moving back to his hometown of London in 2021.
The two met after Frangos’ mother, a long-time friend of Jackson’s, told Jackson her son was looking for people to play with. Jackson invited Frangos to her home court in 2023 to assess his level and connect him with the right group — and the rest was history.
The relationship took both of them by surprise.
“I was married for 30 years, and it was a great marriage,” said Jackson, who is divorced. “I wanted nothing to do with another relationship.”
After his wife passed away, Frangos felt the same.
“I had come back [to London] with the mindset that I was perfectly happy,” he said.
But now, the two are inseparable, and are quickly crossing items off their bucket list.
“Traveling the world, being together — it is beyond any wildest dream I could have thought of even just three years ago,” said Frangos.
The social aspect also motivates seniors to engage in activities that might otherwise seem too challenging or solitary.
“We got engaged, which we’re super happy about,” he added.
Physical and mental benefits
For seniors who get involved in OSGA sports, the physical benefits are clear.
Jackson, who had a 36-year office career, went from being a self-described “desk jockey” to playing pickleball two to three hours a day, five days a week.
“The best thing about [being in shape], too, is when you go on a holiday and you want to climb up the stairs in Thailand to see a beautiful monument, you can climb up a mountain … you don’t have to think twice,” she said.
“You’ve got the energy, you’ve got the stability, you’ve got the cardiovascular ability to do these things.”
Lubrano, of the OSGA, says healthy aging means staying physically active while also keeping one’s mind sharp.
OSGA offers mentally engaging games such as snooker, euchre, bridge and “prediction” cycling and walking, where participants estimate how long it will take them to complete a course.
“It keeps your mind active,” said Lubrano. “When you’re playing hockey, you have to be thinking. With prediction skating — it’s all in your mind, keeping straight what your time is.”
Frangos says a morning session on the pickleball court “sets me up mentally for the rest of the day.”
“The benefits physically are just as big as the benefits mentally,” he said. “You need to keep social to keep your cognitive function, and to keep different illnesses at bay is to keep that social connection.”
Importance of community
“To exercise on your own, most people have to go out to a gym or the [YMCA],” said Lubrano. “When you’re older, if you’re alone, it’s not that easy … but with our games, because of the social aspect of it, people are more willing to come out.”
Through tournaments and travel, Frangos and Jackson have met seniors from across Canada at provincial and national championships. They even met international players at the Huntsman World Senior Games in Utah, which hosts more than 12,000 athletes annually.
Jackson has befriended a 96-year-old Guinness World Record holder who is still medaling, and once played pickleball with the 50-year-old country artist Dierks Bentley.
“We let him win,” she said with a laugh.
To learn more about the Ontario Senior Games Association, visit www.osga55plus.ca. To join their community, register here.
