Badminton NL is experiencing a surge in interest in the sport with its primary St. John’s Junior Development Program at full capacity, a second group beginning this weekend, and a thriving adult club filling up quickly.

While the Avalon Adult Badminton Club uses Leary’s Brook Junior High, Paul Reynold’s Community Centre is the venue of choice for Junior Programming. The program has been at full capacity since Fall 2020 when it held 27 players and three coaches.

John Gillam, a Chartered Professional Coach with an Advanced Coaching Diploma, has been coaching for more than 30 years. He believes the success of the club is due to the structured environment of skill development balanced with some game play in each session. He attests to the popularity of the program. “Last year, we had virtually no attrition. So when we saw that we had a growing waiting list of young players with little chance of getting into the program, I felt it was necessary to start a second group.”

The Paul Reynold’s gym is used to full capacity using pylons to maintain six feet of physical distancing. When players are socializing off-court, they are required to mask up.

About half the session is spent in learning skills with a focus on cooperative training and striving for improvement. Assistant coaches Joerg Evermann and Angela Cronhelm are at their busiest during this time. John says, “We have three levels of player in the group: beginners,  intermediate, and provincial team athletes. Provincial athletes are given a set of objectives and are primarily responsible for their own training. I give them an initial briefing and check on them periodically but the beginners and intermediate players get most of our attention.“

The Junior Development Programs target youth from 9 to 15. There is a planned time for age 16-18 as well if there are enough high school players interested.

Every session ends with some game play, usually doubles but sometimes singles as well. The players seem thrilled, and spend time challenging one or another of their peers. A couple times per year there’s a round-robin competition among players at one level.

Play starts just after technical instruction finishes and last until just a few minutes before the end of the session. Then, a stop is called, players take down the nets, return the shuttles and the gym becomes silent as everyone leaves within minutes.

 

Photos thanks to Lisa Clarke

The following programs are offered in the St. John’s area:

Junior Development, age 9-15

High School Recreation, age 16-18