This is the latest article written by CFAM Radio 950 Student Reporter Oscar Graham highlighting the 2019 Badminton season at Roseau Valley School in Dominion City.

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“Badminton is an awesome time where you can be as good or as terrible as you want to be”

Jennifer Dyck (Roseau Valley School badminton coach)

 

It might not be as popular as the Rugby program at Roseau Valley School (RVS) in Dominion City, but another great year of badminton just ended at RVS. The players and coaches are sad to see another season go by. They’ve said

they are going to miss seeing friends from other schools, going out for lunch and simply the game itself.

 

Badminton is a racket sport where teams of two or a team of one uses a racket to hit a birdie over a net. Points are scored by hitting the birdie over the net to the opponents, and hoping they miss the birdie and lands in bounds on the opponent side of the court. It can be played as a casual outdoor activity in a yard or on a beach, and more structured games can be played on a regular indoor court.

Wyatt Hildebrand, member of the RVS badminton team, described how his season went for him and his partner, “My partner and I have been playing together for two years, and we’ve seen a lot of growth in both of our games. We weren't a very successful team our first year as we lost every game by a score of roughly 21-7, but we practised hard and saw improvement this past year. We got our first win and we were so excited. We had doubts this was gonna be another winless season. We did only have one win this past year, but we still had a positive attitude, and the losses became much closer and some even felt like wins. It was overall another fun year”.

 

Badminton doesn't get as much publicity as arguably the most popular racket sport, tennis. It was established in 1873 (the same year as tennis), but never got as much fame as tennis did. People simply enjoyed tennis more than badminton. Badminton did however become quite popular in Asia with recent competitions being dominated by teams from China. Badminton really sky-rocketed when the sport was brought into the Olympics in 1992. There were four events: Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles, Men’s Doubles and Women’s Doubles. Badminton became more popular throughout the years, and more high school students started to take up the sport. It required less physical activity than other sports (tennis), so it brought out more athletes that don’t necessarily play faster paced sports. On the other hand, in order to be successful, badminton does require excellent fitness, aerobic stamina, agility, strength, speed and precision.

 

One of the coaches at RVS, who's been coaching for five years, Jennifer Dyck, explained how she doesn’t only just like the game... she loves the game. She loves how it’s individualized, and how you’re constantly moving all over the court. She reflects how this past season went, “I thought we had a very good season, We had most of our JV teams make it to playoffs at the regional tournament, and two varsity players pick up their first win as a duo which is a huge accomplishment. The disappointing part about the season, was that we had teams qualify for Zones, but unable to participate due to our school musical, so we would like to change that in the future”.

 

Her favourite memory of her badminton coaching career was when a few years ago she had a team of two players qualify for playoffs at regional’s. They had to win a best two out of three. They won the first game, and lost the second game and were trailing in the third game. Both players were getting quite upset with one another, so Jen called a timeout and explained how they are better than their opponents, and they ended up coming back to win.

 

Her goal for the next couple of years is to see one of her teams not only qualify for Zones, but be able to get past Zones and qualify for Provincials.