Racquet Network staff are certified experts. Many are also certified coaches. Racquet Network Experts undergo extensive training and product knowledge testing in order to ensure that we have the most knowledgeable staff in the racquet sports industry.
Once pickleball players get beyond the beginner stage, they start the process of finding a playing style that suits them and allows them to win more points. One of the most popular game styles is “The Spinner.”
Spinners like to do exactly that: they like to spin the ball. Some come from a table tennis background where spinning is a central part of the game. Others come from a tennis background where top spin, slices and spin serves are easily adapted to a variety of pickleball shots.
Regardless of your reason for wanting to add some spin to your game, we’ve got your back. We always have spin-capable paddles in our in-store inventory and we have even more online. Below is a list of the best paddles that we offer for spin.
The Wilson racquets above are core products and they are usually in stock in our southwest Calgary store. The Onix paddles are generally special order items, which means that they are generally available online. If you want to pick them up in-store, you will need to order them online and choose SHIP TO STORE for local pickup.
If spin isn’t your game, no worries. We have lots of other options both online and in store. If you are shopping online, check out our online racquet selector. If you are in Calgary, stop by our store and talk to one of our experts. We can help you find a paddle for any game style.
There is a constant refrain in the shoe business about the evils of major shoe brands and how their decisions are damaging women’s feet.
The narrative says that generations of women have suffered immeasurable foot damage due to shoe designs that promote style and beauty over health. These decisions, the narrative holds, have caused millions of older women to suffer from hammertoes, bunions, crooked toes, flat feet, corns, callouses and many other maladies of the feet.
To some extent, that is true. Poor shoe design does lead to preventable injuries and painful chronic conditions. But at some point women have to take responsibility for the choices they make.
Yonex Ladies Court Shoes
A random sample of five Yonex ladies court shoes from our online store.
In our store for example, we help hundreds of women try on shoes every month. Many of these women suffer from one or more of these maladies, so we do not hesitate to offer healthier options. Only a small percentage, however, even consider what we are telling them.
Almost every day of the week we have women in our store who insist on buying court shoes that are too short and too narrow. “But my heel is slipping,” is the most common sign that a woman is about to insist on buying a shoe that is too small.
We advise them that a little bit of movement in the heel of an athletic shoe is normal and healthy. We explain that the only way to get an athletic shoe in which there is no heel movement is to choose a shoe that is too short.
Asics Ladies Court Shoes
A random sample of five Asics ladies court shoes from our online store.
Shoes that have no heel movement — in other words, shoes that are too short — lead to hammertoes, bunions, crooked toes, flat feet, corns, callouses and many other maladies of the feet.
“But I am always a size 7,” some women state emphatically. “I have been a size 7 my whole life.”
In fact, from birth to death, the human foot is in a constant state of change. Our feet change grow longer and wider through childhood. For some people, feet continue growing well into adulthood.
Asics Ladies Court Shoes
A random sample of Babolat ladies court shoes from our online store.
Change continues even for those whose feet do stop growing in their teens. As we age, our feet tend to widen and our arches tend to fall. So nobody can ever truly say that their feet are the same size now as they were more than 20 years ago.
We offer expert fittings in our store for exactly this reason. We want to give all athletes, including female athletes of all ages, an opportunity to buy shoes that will not damage (or further damage) their feet.
Unfortunately, we often feel like our good advice is falling on deaf ears. Many women, it seems, are accustomed to the pain and want to continue experiencing it, even into their golden years, in spite of the fact that there are many healthier options right in front of them.
Dato Method and Advanced Dato Method are stringing methods that allow badminton racquets to be strung at extremely high tensions. Both methods were developed in Calgary by stringers at Racquet Network over a period of years between 2004 and 2018.
The word “dato” means “beloved”. The term “Dato Method” reflects the love and attention to detail that the racquet stringer puts into his/her work when using this method to string badminton racquets.
Dato Method racquet stringing is a center-out stringing technique for badminton racquets that utilizes one piece of string and two Parnell knots. It can use used at any tension, but it was created as a way to string at high tension while minimized the chances of breakage during stringing.
Dato Method represents a major advance over traditional high tension stringing methods in which stringers over-tension some areas of the string bed and under-tension other areas while hoping to achieve an estimated overall tension.
Dato Method stringing ensures that every string in a badminton racquet is pulled to a very specific tension. There are no estimates in Dato Method. The pattern followed allows stringers to string racquets at extremely high and extremely precise tensions without breaking the frames.
Advanced Dato Method stringing allows the customer to specify different tensions on different strings. For example, a customer may want the center mains or crosses to be at 0.2 lbs higher tension than outside mains or crosses. Or they may want to increase tension by 0.1 lbs on every main string outside of the sweet spot.
At Racquet Network, all Dato Method stringing occurs after hours when there are no distractions and the stringer cannot be rushed. Pull speeds are reduced to absolute minimums and several pauses are built into the stringing process in order to allow the frame to absorb all of the additional tension.
Dato Method Badminton Racquet Stringing
When performing the Dato Method, stringers double back on the outside mains and then string the middle crosses first. This prevents the loop from becoming deformed at either the top or the bottom.
Once the loop is stabilized by installation of the middle crosses, they complete the bottom crosses This ensures that loop is fully stabilized before starting the weakest part of the frame, which is the top of the loop furthest from the handle.
When stringing at tensions over 32 lbs., Dato Method stringers take additional steps to stabilize both the top and bottom of the loop order to prevent it from changing shape while they are stringing the mains.
In addition to the steps above, the stringing machine must be precisely re-calibrated immediately prior to all high tension stringing jobs.
All of these extra steps and precautions increase the stringing time from about 20 minutes (standard stringing) to well over an hour. The higher the tension, the longer it takes. Hence, the relevance of the term “Dato”.
We never recommend individual tennis string products nor do we rank them. We recommend string categories from which players can pick a string that works best for them.
The best overall tennis string category for recreational ladies is 17 gauge soft strings, like multifilaments, synthetic guts and natural guts. All of the strings in this group are suitable for recreational ladies who are not frequent string breakers.
Tennis Strings Recommended for Recreational Ladies
All tennis strings in this group are soft, powerful and playable. This is perfect combination for most ladies at the recreational level. However, some ladies may swing a lot harder than usual and may find that they need to move up to thicker 16 gauge strings.
Great news for Tecnifibre fans in Calgary. Our Tecnifibre squash racquet program just got even better.
There is no point in buying your Tecnifibre racquets anywhere else because nobody can beat this deal.
Starting today, every Tecnifibre ™ Carboflex squash racquet purchased in-store now comes with $200 in free stringing upgrades.
But wait! There’s more …
Customers who purchase these racquets from us will save time as well as money because they will be able to automatically upgrade from basic labour (one week turnaround) to guaranteed one-hour stringing at no extra charge.
Racquet Network’s new squash program saves you $20 every time you string your racquet. It also cuts down on the number of trips you have to make to our store.
Here is how things normally work.
Break a string.
Bring racquet to the store.
Go home and wait for email notification.
Come back to the store a few days later to pick your racquet up.
In other words, you make two trips to the store.
Here is how things work now.
Break a string.
Book an appointment.
Bring your racquet to the store.
Wait 30 minutes and then take your racquet home with you.
In order words, you only come to the store once.
The new system also saves you money. Guaranteed one-hour racquet service normally costs $40.00 plus the cost of string. Under the new program, it costs the same as one-week service: $20 plus the cost of string.
So players who are participating in our new program save $200 and 10 trips to the store, which more than pays for the cost of a new racquet.
This is because when you purchase a new Yonex badminton racquet from us, we automatically include $200 worth of stringing upgrades.
While this is awesome deal for anybody who lives in southwest Calgary, this is an even better deal for squash players who live far from our store because it saves them even more time and more money on racquet stringing services.
Our new squash program, therefore, continues to be the best overall program in Calgary for squash players who want to save time, save money and play with the best squash racquets in the world. In addition to those three things, our program is also best for the environment because it reduces car trips and keeps racquets out of the landfills for longer.
Our Pro Shop has moved to Canyon Meadows Shopping Center. It is on the 2ND FLOOR of the NORTH WING. The unmarked glass doors leading to the second floor are immediately to the right of the Rexall Drug Store. Please note the new address: 2ND FLOOR - NORTH WING, UNIT 201, 11625 ELBOW DR SW. Dismiss
