**Disclaimer** The following report from our Canadian Junior Nationals Montreal Correspondant, contains opinions that do not necessarily reflect those of the “Badminton Video Magazine”, and the “Badminton Video Magazine” does not condone, or recommend the actions described by the “Montreal Correspondant”. That being said, enjoy…

Hello there, this is your “Montreal Correspondant” reporting. I would have posted this article yesterday (Sunday), but my full recovery took a little longer than expected. It’s been 4 years since I last competed in the nationals (thank you to whoever was behind introducing the u23 nationals). I know personally, it was such a great feeling to experience Junior Nationals one more time as a player. Some of my best memories as a teen have come from Nationals (particularily Saturday night) and I wanted to make sure that was the younger players could say the same thing later on down the road. On that note, I knew that it was up to me and the rest of the veterans to show the up & coming athletes the real spirit of what Nationals is all about, because, really, Nationals is more than just a competition… its a celebration….its a way to embrace the sport that we all love both on and off the court.

As a reporter, I wanted to find out what it took to make a Saturday night nationals celebration a memorable one; here’s what I found. First off, the winners have to treat themselves right and start celebrating immediately. This involves jugs of beer being shared amongst you & your friends while lounging in the sauna/steam room. This, I was told, is called the pre-pre-pre-game celebration.

Next, everybody takes a few minutes to slap on something decent to wear and find a designated location for the pre-pre-game celebration. This location just happened to be my hotel room, room 2008. Everyone is invited to the pre-pre-game. Apparently the secret to a good pre-pre-game involves a couple texas mickey’s of Canadian Club’s finest whiskey, a few cases of Coronas purchased from the local depaneur ($15 for a 12 pack!!), and about 20 empty stomachs to fill. This should lead to a fashionably late but graceful entrance into the banquet…just in time for the main course.

Congratulations to the “fair play award” winners. In case you don’t know, this is the award given to the most sportsman-like player. I was expecting Brody Hilland to be a shoe-in for this but I guess he fell shy by a few votes. One thing I would like to ask though, what was up with the door-prizes!!?? As much as I would have like to have my name drawn to win the DVD collection of “ultimate fighting’s greatest knock-outs”, I think something that advocated less violence would have been better. The banquet ended up being a quick meal for the players as they were anxious to attend the pre-game celebration, which again took place in room 2008. I felt sorry for the deejay that was hired to host “the dance” at the banquet. Based on the energy that the pre-pre-game generated, I think the deejay was expecting a pretty rowdy night…unfortunately, by 9:30 pm he was hearing crickets. Actually I felt more sorry for whoever had to pay for the deejay.

Moving on to the pre-game. To put it simply, the pre-game is a hotel room full of about 50 people looking for a means to intoxicate themselves. Whether it be drinking Vodka and chasing it with beer (as so gracefully demonstrated by the ladies from Ontario), or taking part in Corona chugging contests (props to the young men from Alberta), people found a way to “get ‘er done”.

Now, on to the real celebration which took place at “Mile End”; a quaint little 3 story night club on St. Laurent. This basically involves the purchasing of $7 drinks and intense dancing to repetitive house music. It’s hard for me to actually describe in anymore detail what else went on at the Mile End. For some reason, my memory is drawing a blank. If you want to learn more about the type of dancing that went on, you’ll have to check with our other correspondants Mark Docksteader and Leila Barrs. To learn more about which 18 year old boys were make movies on 21 year old ladies, just ask Tammy Sun. To find out what its like to eat at McDonalds at 4am just ask Justin Mullaly. If anybody has any additional reports regarding the events that took place last week, BVM would love to hear from you. Please make your postings on the forum or add a comment under the article. Reporting from the drunk tank, “the Montreal Correspondant”…

The U19 and U23 nationals finished today, and the first players to win titles in the U23 category are as follows:

Boys Singles: Mathieu Laforest defeated Chris Lee 15-12, 15-9
Girls Singles: Samantha Ralph defeated Jennifer Lam 5-11, 11-7, 11-7
Boys Doubles: Conrad Sun and Justin Mullaly defeated Alvin Lau and Toby Ng 15-12, 15-13
Girls Doubles: Samanth Ralph and Fiona Mckee defeated Jennifer Lam and Stephanie Ko 15-6, 17-14
Mixed Doubles: Alvin Lau and Fiona Mckee defeated Toby Ng and Phyllis Chan 12-15, 15-7, 15-8

The champs in the U19 category are as follows:

Boys Singles: Joseph Rogers defeated Philippe Gaumond 17-14, 15-5
Girls Singles: Alice Man defeated Isabelle Mercier-Dalphond 11-8, 11-3
Boys Doubles: Andy Cheong and Chris Lee defeated Tim Ma and Derrick Ng 15-6, 15-7
Girls Doubles: Audrey Bonneville and Isabelle Mercier-Dalphond defeated Caroline Cheung and Georgia Desjardin 15-8, 15-13
Mixed Doubles: Derrick Ng and Charmaine Yeung defeated Alice Man and Andy Cheong 17-15, 15-9

Our “Montreal Correspondant” will post some stories about the finals tomorrow night, or Monday, after he is finished partying and fully recovered.

If anyone was at the nationals this week, and videotaped any of the matches please email me at emmetgibney@vigormedia.com because I would like to put these videos online. In the email tell me your name, where you are from, and which matches you taped. So, if you have a match taped, email me and I will give you my mailing address. We will return the tape to you afterwards, and pay you $15 per tape (I’m not interested in the consolation finals, just main draw matches). If you have videos from the u14 finals, I am also interested in those. I already have the u16 finals online, look in our video section.

Tammy Sun, arguably the best female player in the Canadian badminton circuit, was unable to pull through to the finals in both her mixed doubles and her doubles matches. Her mixed partner and brother, Conrad Sun, said “As dissappointing as this is, I can’t put any blame on Tammy. She was a leader out there, and totally pulled through when the team needed it. I’ve never felt more comfortable on court with anybody and I’m sure her regular mixed partner can attest to that. I just couldn’t pull it together. I’ve been trying to figure out the game of mixed doubles for a long time now, and I realized tonight that I still have a lot to learn.” Tammy also lost her doubles semi-finals. Unfortunately, her partner Val St. Jacque’s ailing back problems haunted her during the match and prevented a lot of her mobility. Conrad Sun and Justin Mullaly dominated their doubles semi-final defeating their opponents 15-4 & 15-0. They will not be facing their Albertan friends as Brody Hilland and Mark Docksteader lost to BC’s Toby Lau and Alvin Lau.

Badminton Nationals Draws

As of 10:30 am this morning, second seeded Fionna McKee has a new mixed partner. Her original partner, Brody Hilland, injured his heel during his singles match last night and told Fionna that he was unable to play. Fionna managed to find Alvin Lau to replace Brody. Brody will still play singles and doubles in tonight’s semi finals. Some might argue that this move may have made the mixed team stronger. Is Alvin and better partner for Fionna? Let us know on our forum, or feel free ot post a comment.

Just as you thought this tournament couldn’t get any more interesting, second seeded doubles pair Justin Mullaly and Conrad Sun stepped foot on the court for the first time this tournament wearing all-white, capris “flood” pants that they purchased at Foot Locker (the exact same pants that Rafael Nadal wore during Wimbledon). In addition to that, Justin was wearing an all-white Nike sleeve-less muscle shirt. As soon as Justin removed his warm-up sweater, the Referee approached Justin and tells him to change to a t-shirt. The referee deemed the top inappropriate for men, but fine for ladies. Justin complied. Things went smoothly during the warm up, but as the players were getting ready to commence play, an outside official (who will remain anonymous) approached the chair umpire and said that the capris pants worn by the Albertan duo was not proper sport attire. A ten minute arguement took place between the players, Brendan Morgan, Denise Julien vs. the referee, and 3 other officials regarding the “inappropriate” attire. Since Justin did not have any shorts to change to, the umpire was told by the referee, to give both players a yellow card for inappropriate attire. I caught up with the official who initially brought up the issue and he insisted, “The pants were not proper athletic wear…they needed to be shorts that were at knee-length.” Justin Mullaly says, “Rafael Nadal wore these pants at Wimbledon, the strictest club in the world when it comes to attire. These are athletic capris that I bought at Foot Locker in the tennis section!” Conrad Sun stated, “I have never gotten a yellow card before in my life, and to receive my first card in this manner I think is ridiculous. The tournament entry application says ‘white clothing is mandatory’…thats all it says. I’ve done nothing wrong or offensive.” The referee would not allow Justin and Conrad to compete if they wore the same capris during the semi-finals. Looks like Justin will have to go back to foot locker and look for some shorts. Do you think Justin and Conrad deserved a yellow card? Do think its fair that women are allowed to sleeve-less tops and men aren’t? Let us know your thoughts.

The big talk of the tournament fell off the Brody Hilland issue and now roots from the U19 boys singles quarterfinals. In particular, the defaulting of David Snider; the no.1 seed. David Snider was scheduled to play unseeded Quebec player Phillipe Gaumond. David was expected to win this match, however, he woke up with an extremely disturbing ‘kink’ in his neck. It was to the point where he was not able to pivot his head. As a result, 20 minutes before his match was scheduled, David declared that he would default his singles match. Upon defaulting, the local physio therapist worked on his neck and brought back to normal working condition. Dave then proceeded to tell the referee that he was able to play. The referee would allow him play so long as his Phillipe would allow it. Sure enough, Phillipe, who was already looking forward to his Semi-Final debut, told Dave that he did not want to play their quarterfinal match. So there you have it…heavy favourite Dave Snider is out of the tournament due to an arguably avoidable default. The big talk, however, stirs around Phillipe Gaumond who was viewed by some players and officials as dishonourable and cowardly. What do you think? What would you have done if you were in Phillipe’s shoes? Do you think he is a dishonourable coward? Please feel free to post your thoughts in our forum!

When looking back at the history of badminton players of Canada, one would never consider Brody Hilland as notorious for being the “Bad Boy” of the sport. In fact, most may even point him out as one of the more classy players of the game. However, one French-Canadian badminton umpire (who will remain anonymous) may think otherwise after umpiring Brody and partner Mark Docksteader played Pachu/Harrison in the round of 16’s. After Brody hit his first serve of the game, the chair umpire (there was no service judge) called Brody on a service fault. Not surprisingly, Brody was caught off guard with the call and began to exchange words with the umpire. The umpire then proceeded to say “YOU DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!”. Once again, Brody Hilland was caught off-guard. After Brody and Mark tried to reason with the umpire, who did not speak English very well, they realized they weren’t getting anywhere. So they gave up the serve, requested a service judge and continued play. I spoke with Brody later on…

“All I said at first was ‘Are you allowed to call that?’ and I guess from that the umpire heard ‘Calm Down’. I didn’t feel I was being rude, but I felt it was extremely hard to communicate with the umpire because his English was not that great. It really wasn’t a big deal seeing as it was the beginning of the game so I just let it go.”

Brody later told me that he even went up to the umpire after the game to apologize. The umpire did not accept his apology claiming that Brody did indeed tell him to “calm down”. Here’s what I have to say: What is the chair umpire doing calling service faults? First of all, he’s too high to really judge, and secondly, who is watching the receiver? What are your thoughts on this issue? Was the chair umpire justified in his actions? Should this be looked into by badminton Cananda, or should they just let it slide? Please let us know on our forum.

Anybody who was scheduled to play after the U19 boys doubles on Wednesday night at the National Badminton Championships in Montreal found themselves sitting and waiting for at least an hour and a half before they stepped on court. However, these eager competitors weren’t waiting bored as all of the four courts resulted in intense nail-biting 3 game matches. It has been a while since Canada has seen such tight competition. This may prove to be good for the sport. The fact that most players are playing at a fairly high level, will push select players to bring their game to a higher level in order pull away from the pack. Of all the players that went to three games, which team do you think will prove be the most successful in this tournament and in the future? Let us know on our forum.

Tournament Results

Well, it’s official…the u19 Nationals is underway. Last night (May 23) was host to some very intense matches filled with some of the best talent this country has seen in ages. One notable defeat took place early that night as Vancouver’s Alex Wong took out the number 2 seeded Raymond Wong (not related) in a thrilling 3 game match that lasted over 2 hours! All the other seeds in the men’s singles advanced to the next round which took place this morning. U19 ladies singles had no real surprises except for the fire alarm that went off in the middle of the matches. Play was suspended for a brief 20 minutes. Players waited outside in their fashionable white sport attire as 4 fire trucks arrived only to find that it was a false alarm. U23 matches begin this morning as well as the second round of the u19 events. Keep checking on Badmintonvm.com for updates. Feel free to put your comments on the forum. I want to hear about your predictions!

Canadian Jr Nationals Draws