Boosting badminton

The Sackville Junior Badminton Club rallies hard to give Nova Scotia competitive badminton a national presence.

“Badminton is a small community,” says Karen Stadnyk, SBC club founder. “It started in Sackville, but we’re an HRM-wide program with members coming from Halifax, Hammonds Plains, Bedford, Dartmouth, Tantallon … and even Truro,” she says.

SBC formed about seven years ago in Sackville, but today only one of it’s 45 members comes from Sackville and practices are held at CP Allen, Citadel High School and Waverley Memorial.

With limited gym space and funding, growing a competitive club takes time. “These facilities are perfect for badminton with their very high ceilings and large courts … We had to get creative because more kids wanted to join,” says Stadnyk.

“We’re very fortunate to have great coaches including Sheri Parks and Elliott Beals. Both are level three coaches and Beals was the 2007 Canada Games coach.”

Of the newly selected Nova Scotia Canada Games 2015 badminton team, eight of the 10 are SBC members or alumni. “So that’s part of our goal, to train them and we’re hoping to see that develop around the province.”

But Stadnyk says she also wants kids to find their niche, whether that means being a great high school player, recreational or competitive player. “Some of them are taking their coaching and umpiring levels,” says Stadnyk.

The competitive club now focuses on skill-level rather than age-level and is broken into three groups: Junior Development, Junior Competitive and High Performance, who were recently in Montreal competing.

The eight-to-18 year old players practise between two and four times weekly. Janay Beals (15) from Dartmouth won the triple crown in her last two tournaments this year. “I like to play freely and compete against people and show them what I can do and just have fun,” says Beals.

As their skills develop, players move from using a nylon and plastic shuttle to feather shuttles, which Beals says is a totally different game. “It’s a lot slower and it’s a harder game with feather … you have to keep your shots smart because you want to get there fast enough to hit it properly and not nick the shuttle.”

“Badminton is the fastest racket sport in the world,” says 14-year-old Cecelia White from Truro. “I think all sports have a community … but badminton is kind of special. It’s like a big family … at tournaments you’re with your extended family,” says White, who also enjoys debating when she’s not off-court training.

“Our kids are studious,” says Stadnyk. She says a couple of the competitive players couldn’t go to Montreal because they were studying to write the International Baccalaureate exams.

“Badminton, it’s not the coolest sport,” laughs Parks, “but it attracts good kids. It attracts kids who like to work hard, they are really good at organizing their time.”

“I like meeting new people and playing different people outside of the province,” says 12-year-old Aaron Beals from Dartmouth.

Katie Hills (11) from Halifax plays at the Junior Development level and says she likes that it gets her up and moving. “I like rallying because you don’t need to keep points and you can practice your shots,” says Hills.

Club secretary and volunteer Brian Ashton says they’re proud of the kids and of the sport, which values sportsmanship and athletic talent. “The more young players eagerly seeking out the game, the more clubs will form,” says Ashton.

Sackville Junior Open, an open-to-anyone tournament for 8-to-22-year-olds, takes place Mar. 14 and 15 at CP Allen. Register at: www.badmintonns.ca.

Information is available about after-school lessons at Canada Games Centre at https://badmintonns.ca/after-school-badminton-programs/ and Dalplex summer camps at http://athletics.dal.ca/children_youth/camps.html.