WinterMAX
Pickleball Tournament held annually between Christmas and New Years at the Pickle Lodge in West Chester, OH. In 2025, the tournament is happening from December 26-28, 2025. Registration opens on October 6 on PickleballBrackets.
WinterMAX – nestled neatly on the calendar each year between Christmas and New Year’s Day – began as an 80-100 player tournament way back in 2017. During these first few years, the tournament included food/desserts/snacks, ugly sweater contests and cookie bake-offs.
There were very few local tournaments at the time. WinterMAX began, selfishly, as a way for Todd to scratch the itch of his own desire to play in a local tournament. In that first year (2017) of WinterMAX, he played and directed the tournament with help, of course, from his wife, Teresa. However, playing and directing soon became untenable as the tournament grew in numbers. Now you will see Todd and Teresa solely behind the tournament desk.
Facilitating a tournament typically requires tournament software. In 2017, simple Excel spreadsheets were used. In 2018, we ventured into trying PickleballTournaments.com. Not a fan of its usability, in 2019, we test-drove PickleballBrackets. I feel confident in saying that WinterMAX was the first tournament to give PickleballBrackets.com a test-drive in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the surrounding area.
2020 was the year of Covid and we, unfortunately, returned to an Excel spreadsheet to better accommodate (at least from a financial perspective) a much smaller scale tournament.
Tweet This2021 was perhaps the most challenging year for WinterMAX. In late November/early December of 2021 Todd was hospitalized for two weeks with Covid. Hosting the tournament seemed bleak, as cancelling seemed like a real and necessary possibility. However, Teresa and friends, Denise V. and Jason P., stepped up to run the tournament and keep the WinterMAX tradition alive. I was so grateful!
WinterMAX during the first five years were all held at The Court Yard Sportsplex – an older, “dilapidated” tennis center. However, in October, 2022, Court Yard was sold to a pair of local, Cincinnati, pickleball entrepreneurs, Mitch Dunn and Joe Frank. As a result of its sale and ongoing renovation, WinterMAX was held at Five Seasons Sports Club in 2022. With access to 8 pickleball courts (instead of 6 courts at Court Yard), our registration numbers grew to about 160.
In 2023, we were back at 7373 Kingsgate Way in West Chester, OH. However, we were now at The Pickle Lodge. The Pickle Lodge had half the facility open (and restrooms were open for the first time for the two-day tournament), which allowed us to play on 9 dedicated, indoor courts. As a result, our registration numbers surpassed 200.
In 2024, the entire 17-court facility was opened. For the previous 7 years, WinterMAX was simply a two-day event (gender doubles and mixed doubles).
Thank you to everybody who has played, volunteered, or helped in any way. We appreciate you all!
A Look Back to Last Year (2024)
WinterMAX Throwbacks at Court Yard
Shown below is pickleball open play as Todd talks about the upcoming WinterMAX tournament in 2019.
Shown below is pickleball open play as Todd talks about the WinterMAX tournament in 2018.