The C4 season opener is 30 days away — May 9th in Toronto at The Picklr. International players, a new venue, and the best pickleball Canada has ever seen. Don't miss it.
C4 is almost here, and if you thought the competition couldn't get any more elite, think again.
When the CNPL kicks off its fourth season on May 9th in Toronto at the Club Med Season Opener, it won't just be the best pickleball Canada has to offer. It'll be some of the best pickleball the world has to offer. For the first time, world-class players from four continents will compete under one league structure, in meaningful team competitions with real playoff implications. We're talking about the #1 rated women's doubles player in Asia, the #3 in Central America, the #5 in Europe, and the #6 men's doubles player in South America. Aibika Kalsarieva, Ariana Rodriguez, Maria Klokotzky, and Bruno Faletto are all suiting up for CNPL teams this season.
These aren't exhibition appearances or honorary invites. They were drafted. They have rosters. They're here to compete.
This is what a league growing up looks like.
How Did We Get Here?
It's worth pausing to appreciate how much has changed since Season 1. The CNPL started with 32 Canadian players, a $100K prize pool, and a dream of building something real for professional pickleball in this country. Three seasons later, the league has nearly doubled its roster depth. C4 features 8 teams of 6 players, 48 athletes total, with the draft emphasizing depth, chemistry, and format intelligence over star chasing. And now, for the first time, internationally ranked players chose the CNPL as their league.
That's not a small thing. Canada didn't go looking for borrowed credibility. The credibility came to us.
Now You Can Watch It All
Here's the other big news heading into C4: you can actually watch it, on television, all season long.
Game+ has reached a multi-year extension as the official broadcasting partner of the CNPL, delivering live broadcasts of Court 1 at each event, with both courts also streaming on the official Game+ YouTube channel. That means whether you've got Game+ on your TV or you're catching a match on YouTube on your lunch break, the action is right there. The season runs seven regular season events from May through August, wrapping up with a three-day playoff in a new series format in late September.
There has never been a better time to be a CNPL fan who isn't in the arena.
What to Watch For
London Smash, Vancouver Owls, and Grand River Rapids emerged as the winners of the C4 Draft, but with Aibika, Ariana, Maria, and Bruno now scattered across rosters, every team has something worth tuning in for. The question of how Canada's established pros match up against world-ranked competition from four different continents is going to make for genuinely compelling pickleball. Different regional playing styles, strategies, and training backgrounds are all colliding on Canadian courts. Expect surprises.
The season opener kicked off May 9th in Toronto at The Picklr. If you haven't been paying close attention to the CNPL yet, C4 is a very good time to start.