Manitoba Badminton Association – Blumenort Repeats as Grade 7-8 Provincial Team Champions, Defeats Lac du Bonnet B in the Final

Winnipeg, April 24 2016 – At a bustling Maples Collegiate on Sunday April 24th, Blumenort squeaked through the Semi-Finals and Finals to eventually take home Gold once again, with a score of 3-2 against Lac du Bonnet B.

Blumenort was the champion team in 2015, and showed that it wasn’t luck that brought home the hardware.  Blumenort’s Head Coach and school teacher, Mr Curt Brandt had this to say about his team, “We have about half of our eligible students joining the badminton program now so we decided to bring 2 teams this year.  This tournament has provided a lot of incentive and awareness to the younger players so I have a lot of kids in Grade 6 already looking forward to joining the team come Grade 7.”

The tournament itself combines the competitive 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 nature of badminton, with the benefits of team sports like volleyball, basketball, etc.  Teams are split up into round robins and must play other teams from different schools.  A team, made up of 3-5 boys and 3-5 girls, will play another team in a best of 5 match that consists of boys singles, girls singles, boys doubles, girls doubles and mixed doubles.  This format of tournament and/or league is very popular internationally and nationally; it is used in Canada Winter Games, and will be used in the 2018 Manitoba Winter Games.  It is increasing in popularity and may show up as a recreational/intermediate option for adults in Manitoba in the near future.

This year’s tournament featured 14 teams; up 4 from 2015 and 8 from 2014.  Next year will surely be a sell-out performance at the maximum of 16 teams.

For final results and photos, please CLICK HERE.

For more information, please contact:

Ryan Giesbrecht
Executive Director, Manitoba Badminton Association
(204) 925-5621 or (204) 226-0813