12th annual feather tournament brings elite players to Strathmore
Shannon LeClair
Times Reporter
The past weekend, April 2 and 3, Strathmore High School, SHS, once again hosted the 12th annual badminton feather tournament. The main focus, since year one, for this tournament has been to allow rural-based players a chance to experience an open style event, while having an opportunity to meet and watch elite players.
“We had a whole bunch of national and ex-national (players), we had a couple of world players show up, it was all the way from rec players to those who do it for a living,” said Vining Wolff, the head organizer.
“I started it 12 years ago because I moved to Strathmore and I’m a very competitive badminton player.”
Kenton Zandee, who runs the high school badminton program, teamed up with Wolff to bring the feather event to Strathmore, giving younger players a chance to learn a different type of badminton. The two things which make Wolff’s feather event different are, kids can play and it’s a team based event. Wolff said there are not many of those events being run anymore.
“I run the high school kids at the same time as the adults so the kids can actually watch some of these world class players play,” said Wolff.
Because it was a fun tournament, he said people had to come up with names for their teams and they got to dress up in costumes. There was also a prize for best team name, and a best dressed contest for both the high school level and the open event. There were over 250 players making up the 47 teams.
“This (was) the biggest tournament. The next biggest was, I think, three years ago when I had about 220, 225 (players),” said Wolff.
The entry fee paid part of the tournament costs, with the rest used to purchase prizes for the winners. The kids were playing for racquets and racquet bags, while the adults were playing for money.
“The Strathmore teams didn’t do that well, but this is a learning experience for them because they have never seen an event like this, most of them are new,” said Wolff.
“It’s also very, very taxing because by the time you’re done, the ones that had won the tournament had played from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. with almost no breaks.”
Each team played two pools, and each time they would play another team, they would have to play five different matches to get their seeding, said Wolff. Then the team has to keep winning in order to win the tournament. While it was a bit of a strenuous weekend for some of the players, Wolff said they also take their fun seriously.