About

Rock & Roll Ping Pong is DC’s first Rock and Roll inspired Ping Pong or Table Tennis League. We play at the Rock & Roll Hotel in DC’s Atlas District (H Street). We began open table play in Jan 2010 and our league began forming shortly there after. Rock & Roll Ping Pong is about good times with good people and good music. We host both open table games and scheduled league play. League players receive 8 weeks of matches, a player t-shirt, cool prizes and drink discounts.

History

The game originated as a sport in England during the Victorian era, where it was played amongst the upper-class as an after dinner entertainment activity, commonly known then as “wiff-waff”. A row of books were to be stood up along the center of the table as a net, two more books served as rackets and were used to continuously hit a golf-ball from one end of the table to the other. Eventually, table tennis evolved into the modern game in Europe and the United States. The popularity of the game led game manufacturers to sell the equipment commercially. Early rackets were often pieces of parchment stretched upon a frame, and the sound generated in play gave the game its first nicknames of “wiff-waff” and “Ping-pong”.

A number of sources indicate that the game was first brought to the attention of Hamley’s of Regent Street under the name “Gossima”. The name “ping-pong” was in wide use before English manufacturer J. Jaques & Son Ltd trademarked it in 1901. The name “Ping-Pong” then came to be used for the game played by the rather expensive Jaquesses equipment, with other manufacturers calling theirs table tennis. A similar situation arose in the United States, where Jaques sold the rights to the “Ping-Pong” name to Parker Brothers.