Will Milroy, who is the vice-president of the players’ association for Badminton Canada just emailed this message out for players who are playing in the nationals which start tomorrow.

“Dear players,

This is to inform you that there is going to be an athletes meeting scheduled for 3 pm on Friday, February 2, 2007. It will be held at the Tournament Hotel in one of the conference rooms, which will be announced next week at the beginning of Nationals.

Please be aware that there will be quite a few issues on the table: team selections(Pan Am Games and Pan Am Championships), Badminton Canada and Government funding, Senior and Junior Development as well as any other topics that may wish to be discussed.

The first part of the meeting will be athletes only and then for the second part, we will invite Jeff White and possibly Martha Deacon, if she is available, to address any outstanding issues.The point of this meeting is to update the athletes, so we will try to discuss things generally and in a timely fashion unless a particular point is needing further attention.

Both Andrew and I are available at any time during the tournament(within reason) to disucuss any topic at much greater length. If you have any questions, please talk to us. We are there as resources of information for you. What we do not know, we can get for you.

Lastly, I would like to mention that Andrew and I would like to have the opportunity to switch positions for the upcoming year as President and Vice-President. If there is anyone else that is interested in this position, then we can also discuss that at the meeting and have a formal vote to decide for the positions.

Good luck to everyone at Nationals and we will see you next week.

Sincerely,

William Milroy
Vice-President Players Association”

The draws have now been released for the nationals this week, with the tournament scheduled to run from early Thursday to Saturday afternoon. Now that the draws are out we are going to make our predictions for the events.

First off for the men’s singles event it should be noted that Bobby Milroy is not playing, therefore it is much easier to predict a winner since the likely clash of Bobby and Andrew Dabeka is no longer an issue to take into consideration. Therefore the men’s singles should more than likely go to Andrew Dabeka from Ottawa. He will most likely have to play Stephan Wojcikiewicz in the finals, but Stephan will first have to beat Kyle Foley who just recently won a triple crown at the Alberta Open Provincials. Also, Andrew is drawn to play Mike Beres in his semi-final, but honestly if Andrew can’t beat Mike Beres (who is playing in all three events) then he should probably hang up his racket.

Next up is the pathetically weak women’s singles event. With only 11 competitors, and no Anna Rice, it’s pretty sad. Charmaine Reid and 1 million time national champion Denyse Julien are the top two contenders, it could be interesting to see if Denyse can make it 1 million and 1. This could also be a good opportunity for Alice Man and Florence Lavoie to make a stand and prove their future worth.

The men’s doubles is definitely not as strong as the men’s singles. Will Milroy and Mike Beres are the top seeds, and are heavily favoured to win. Disappointing however is the fact that Jon Vandervet and Keith Chan are on the same side of the draw as the top seeds, as I would see them having the best chance of upsetting them. It would have been a good final to watch. I don’t know Francois Bourret, or his skill level, but I doubt that him and Phil Bourret will be able to defeat Milroy and Beres.

Strangely the women’s doubles has more depth than the women’s singles. Why aren’t some of these girls playing singles as well? It makes me think that the majority of our women’s players are just lazy. This is a hard on to predict since I know nothing about these players really. I don’t know who should win, but I predict a final between Charmaine Reid/Fiona McKee and Tammy Sun/Helen Nichol

Finally the mixed doubles, which may very well be the most open draw of all. Will Milroy and Tammy Sun definitely haven’t been playing very much lately. They lost to Kyle Foley and Helen Nichol in the provincials, and haven’t been training in the same city much. Mike Beres and Val Loker are the favourites this year in my mind, largely because they have actually been going to tournaments, so they are probably the most match ready out of all the teams.

Here are the draws

The Canadian National Badminton Championships has changed the dates for the tournament. The new dates are February 1st to February 3rd. The tournament received some really weak entry numbers, therefore they decided to save everybody some money on accommodation costs. It’s a shame that there aren’t more people playing. I think it shows something about the state of competitive badminton in Canada right now. There just aren’t that many people who care that much about badminton enough to travel for a tournament.

We will be at the tournament so you can expect some coverage about it from us here. We might get some video footage up here for you, but we’ll have to wait and see. The Red Willow is not the easiest venue to film in, so match play might be really hard to get. Stay Tuned!

Here is the entries list

Here are the draws

The Badminton Players Federation website has another instructional video with Peter Rasmussen. This week Peter demonstrates a really cool drill for improving your badminton footwork. For those of you who don’t know him, Peter Rasmussen is the 1997 World Champion in men’s singles. He is also known to be one of the few European players to have an Asian style of play which includes some really quick movement. That means this guy really know footwork.

Kyle Foley won an impressive three titles this past weekend at the Alberta Provincial Badminton Championships. Kyle, who isn’t known for his doubles results partnered up with Will Milroy and Helen Nichol to take both the doubles events, and defeated Sam Smith 21-15, 21-11 to take the men’s singles. Will and Kyle took the men’s doubles in three sets against Keith Chan and Mark Docksteader 17-21, 21-14, 21-16.

Helen and Kyle defeated former national champions Will Milroy and Tammy Sun 21-12, 15-21, 21-14 to take the mixed doubles. This was a great weekend for Foley, and a great way to build some confidence for the upcoming nationals in St. Albert, Alberta. However, with opponents like Andrew Dabeka and Mike Beres slated to play, he will be the underdog to take the title.

In the women’s only events it was Helen Nichol and Tammy Sun taking the women’s doubles 21-12, 21-17 over Jody Patrick and Kelli Sherlock, and Grace Gao won the women’s singles 21-6, 21-12 over Vivian Fung.

Congrats to all our provincial champions!

The provincials are happening this weekend in Calgary, and there is a surprise entry. Sam Smith is playing the men’s singles after quite sometime away from competitive badminton. He is seeded first with Kyle Foley seeded second. I don’t know how much Sam has been playing recently, but I’m pretty confident that he will at least make the semi-finals where he is drawn to play Brody Hilland. Brody is living in Lethbridge now so I don’t think he is playing much either these days. My bet is that Sam will take it, but with a new scoring system, and a bit of rust it will be harder than any past matches he has had against Brody. I don’t know if he can beat Kyle Foley in the final, that depends largely on how much Sam has been playing leading up to this event, but it is possible since Sam is a really tough player mentally.

Men’s doubles should almost certainly be Will Milroy and Kyle Foley. They will have to play Keith Chan and Mark Docksteader in the final, and neither of them are training nearly as much as Will and Kyle. It would be a big embarrassment for Will and Kyle to lose.

In the women’s singles I honestly don’t even know any of the players, except for Grace Gao. So I am going to say she will win hands down. I would have expected Jody Patrick to play and kick everyone’s butt, not sure why she isn’t playing.

The women’s doubles should be Tammy Sun and Helen Nichol. If they don’t win they should hang up their rackets for life. These girls are by far the strongest pair. They will probably face Jody Patrick and Kelli Sherlock in the finals.

The mixed doubles should have been Will Milroy and Tammy Sun, but as I look at the draws now the only one that is updated is the mixed draw, and to my absolute surprise, Kyle Foley and Helen Nichol defeated Will and Tammy in three games. That is a big shocker! Well I have seen it many times before that the national champions lose the provincials leading up to the nationals, so hopefully that is the case this time for Will and Tammy’s sake. Well done for Kyle and Helen, especially after a loss at the Alberta Open in December.

There is a brief tutorial on how to jump smash on the BPF website by former World Champion Peter Rasmussen from Denmark. This guy just cranks it, I’ve never seen anyone play badminton like this before.

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Our second badminton DVD is now in stock. The DVDs arrived today and they look great. You can buy the DVD from our store, our if you prefer you can buy it on Amazon.com as well.

Our third badminton DVD, which is an exhibition event featuring Tony Gunawan, Howard Bach, Ardy Wiranata and others, is currently being edited, and should be ready for release soon. Stay tuned for more information on this DVD!