When is a squash court not a squash court?

When it's a dance floor of course!

Check out this awesome photo from the Seoul Open.



Congrats to Nicol David who beat Jenny Duncalf in four games to claim her second Seoul Open title. Read more at SquashSite.

Happy World Squash Day!

Hoping that you all got a chance to get on court today and remind yourself of why you love this game so much. We did! Awesome match with a great friend and then beers after. Solid.

Unfortunately, nothing was organized in Vancouver, Canada, THIS year but we're not going to let the day go by again without some kind of celebration.

PSA Picks Pacey + Pacey

Pacey + Pacey Design is a Vancouver studio that has been in the graphics business for over 12 years but only began to get involved doing design work for the squash community in 2004 when one of the partners caught the "squash bug". They've designed logos for clubs as far afield as Inuvik and Bogota and created posters for National tournaments in Canada and the Organization of Eastern Carribean States. All of that was well and good but, truth be told, their goal had always been to work with the "big boys".

At the end of 2008 the Professional Squash Association contacted Pacey + Pacey and asked them to design a series of posters. These posters would be made available online to PSA event promoters to assist them in advertising their events. As the PSA has partners all over the world the posters would have to appeal to a varied taste. In the end five posters were created and each one stars a current PSA player and takes advantage of the amazing photography of Steve Line at SquashPics.

Squash Republic is pleased to give you a sneak peek at the posters.









We've already spotted one tournament using the poster: The Rochester Pro Am.



Let us know if you see any around and tell us what you think of the designs!

Republic in the Republic

A quick shout out to the newest member of Squash Republic: Pavel Sladecek of the Czech Republic. Pavel is #1 on the Czech tour and his PSA ranking is 160 and we think he looks pretty snazzy in our classic dry fit.

More info on Pavel here.
Order your own shirt here.



Big props to Maciek Klis for forwarding us these photos and to Adamo for taking them!

Squash Stars!

Some of the most influential women in squash are preparing to shake the male-dominated squashnet by launching "SquashStars.com". Here's a quick quote from their promotional material:

Passion is Positive and Powerful
We're passionate players and fans who would like to translate our drive into something positive and powerful for the sport we all love - squash. We believe that we can make a difference and because of that, we dare to dream.

Some of the people involved include Nicol David, Liz Irving, Alana Miller (Canada) and Natalie Grainger. Got your attention yet? The site is being built as we speak but you can get early info as they already have a blog going.

Oh, did we mention that Squash Republic and Pacey + Pacey Design helped with the logo (Do you recognize the athlete in the logo?) and designed the website? Nice.

What if you held a National tournament and no one came?

Firstly, all you Canadian squashies need to thank the World Health Club in Calgary for stepping up to the plate and volunteering to host this year's Canadian Squash Championships. If they hadn't it would have most likely been held in Toronto again. Kudos to Jonathan Hill too for being the point guy on what's turning into a touch-and-go kind of event. He returned my call and emails right away. Thanks dood.

The official website is up and you can sign-up right now. $150 CAD gets you two PAR 11 matches, a "player kit souvenir" (?), Thursday night lasagna feast and dinner and dancing on Saturday night. Contact telephone number: (403) 239-4048. Registration deadline is 9:00am April 13th, 2009.

My only beef? Wasn't long ago that the Nationals meant that the glass court would be coming out of hibernation to dazzle us all with it's 360 degrees of viewing. Not this year. It turns out that the show court in Calgary will be one of the four glass back courts at the WHC. Don't get me wrong, playing on a glass court isn't the be all end all but you can sit a lot more people on four sides than you can on one. This is the problem: You can't buy tickets online yet to see the show court matches. Turns out that the WHC is offering the tickets to it's club members before allowing the rest of Canada to purchase them. Apparently they will go on sale to the general public this Thursday, March 26th. I sure hope that there are some left because it may actually be the deciding factor for a lot of us.

Whatever happened to World Squash Day?

It seems like all squashies are talking about these days is the confusion over PAR, and what it will mean to their club ladder or beer league, and the ongoing struggle to get squash into the Olympics. I'll leave PAR alone for now (only because it doesn't really have graphic representation - maybe I'll design an "I'm for PAR!" or an "Ask ME about PAR!" button:) but I thought I'd mention the latest surrounding squash's quest for GOLD.

It looks like squash is in fear of becoming the well behaved monkey tied to the organ and the IOC is turning the crank. We're "recognized" but not as recognized as solo synchronized diving and we're working hard. Seriously, the IOC has been yanking our chain since 1900 when Jeu de paume was a demonstration sport.

(Mon ami, qu'est ce que c'est Jeu de Paume? It was similar to squash, only competitors used their hands instead of a racquet to strike the ball and it was a demonstration sport. Just in case you think I'm making this up: LINK.)

The WSF has been a busy monkey (if you excuse the metaphor:). They've re-vamped their brand (see previous post), produced a Powerpoint presentation extolling the virtues of the game, created an Olympic Pledge poster, and had superstars sign it, and even created a snazzy video full of game clips and sounds and info all in an effort to catch the IOC's eye and convince them that we are worthy. The video, which you can see on the new WSF-affiliated website, includes this little nugget that still gets my goat: Squash is played in every major games EXCEPT the Olympics.

So what's new on the Olympic front? The death of one idea is making way for the birth of another. I quote from Inside The Games: "The world of Squash is uniting to support the sport’s bid for inclusion in the 2016 Olympic programme with a massive worldwide festival on May 23, it was announced today. The popular World Squash Day is being re-branded as Squash 2016 Day as national federations all over the globe organise a massive programme of events to back the sport's push to get into the Games for the first time."


Much like the effort to get Softball back into the Olympics ("Back Softball") the WSF has recently launched a new website and a groovy shiny new logo in an effort to raise awareness of the initiative and to raise funds to pay the organ grinder.

This latest squash logo is growing on me and their website looks good. Kudos to the WSF and who ever else is involved behind the curtains (Alan Thatcher, you still kicking? And who is Juniper PR in NY anyway?) I think I might even order a t-shirt with the new logo and celebrate with my beer league amigos on May 23rd. Wonder if they'll want to play with PAR scoring by then?