The newly renovated Highland Park features two freshly painted asphalt hard courts, lined with bright white 1.20-meter-high boards, floodlights and two goals.

After 14 years of searching for a permanent home, Grand Rapids Bike Polo Club (GRBP) seems to have fulfilled its mission.

Bike polo games are organized with teams of three to five players, with both sides replacing the horses with personalized, souped-up bikes. Players compete against each other on their bikes and are tasked with shooting the ball into the opponent’s goal, armed with a bat.

GRBP’s first stadium was located beneath the S-curve in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids in 2010. For three years, the club rocked the city’s noisy underbelly and established itself enough to negotiate with the city for a long-term location in Belknap Park.

From 2013 to 2020, the club thrived at Belknap Park with a sizable group of about 25 people ready to play every Thursday. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the club, like most of the world, became more low-profile and significantly inactive. The club was then displaced by the impending renovations of the pickleball court at Belknap Park, with the city promising to find a new location.

In the years that followed, GRBP achieved nomadic status as they regained their greatness with a diverse and inclusive group of easygoing athletes. GRBP rolled from place to place and enjoyed the ride as they briefly stopped near the skate park at 555 Monroe Ave. and near Las Canchas on Seward Ave.

The Grand Rapids Parks, Pools and Playgrounds Millage passed by Grand Rapids voters in 2019 allowed for the modernization and renovation of numerous parks, including Highland Park. Work on the park and the club’s upcoming new home was completed in November 2023.

“We have a lot of amenities at these courses. We have lighting at night so we can play polo late into the night, and we have really nice surfaces and nice boards that people would 100% travel from miles away for,” said Mimi Dlugos, a prominent member of the GRBP, just weeks before the club hosted the Slaydy Hawkins Bike Polo Tournament on July 27 and 28.

Dlugos and GRBP wanted to bring the tournament to Grand Rapids to further establish the club and cycle polo in the community.

“I think it’s a tournament that puts WTFNB at the forefront, which stands for women, transgender, femmes, nonbinary gamers. Those are the people that make this tournament possible,” Dlugos said. “I think people really want to support that. Those are the community members that put all the teams together.”

The Slaydy Hawkins Bike Polo Tournament has a long history. It was originally held in Indianapolis and was started by two female polo players from Indianapolis.

“Then everyone kind of moved away,” Dlugos said. “I think the last year it happened was 2018 or 2019, but then of course COVID-19 came along. Life changed. Indianapolis Bike Polo kind of fell apart and that tournament died.”

With the plan to obtain permission to host and re-run the cycle polo tournament, Dlugos and Julia Wood, a club colleague, contacted the original organizers.

The agreement to revive Slaydy Hawkins was quickly confirmed under two conditions. First, the event must be held annually. Second, the city hosting the event must alternate between Grand Rapids and Salt Lake City, Utah each year. One of the event’s initiators now lives in Salt Lake City and runs his own bike polo league there.

Under these conditions, GRBP was allowed to hold the Slaydy Hawkins Tournament. For the entire weekend, 26 teams with players from Mexico City, Seattle and Ontario traveled to Grand Rapids to participate in the Slaydy Hawkins Tournament and celebrate the sport.

Local Restaurants One-Stop Coney And Urban brewing participated in supporting the event and its actors with additional creative contributions from local artists

With a rotating club team of five teams of about five players each, GRBP hopes to grow by continuing to host weekly games on Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons, as well as a league tournament once a month.