The North Bay Badminton Team. Back (L to R): Coach Perry, Jewel NG, Samantha Derosier, Funmi Soroye, Jared Gagné, Gabriel Pharand, Elijah Everest, Tyson Periard, Coach Kurt TP
Front (L to R): Ellen Perry, Marina Sinicrope, Melanie Aiton, Megan Ablett, Julianne Sévigny, Taylor Jacque, Nicholas Babich, Addison Hunt. Missing: Emilie Brazeau
Another year, another successful badminton season for the North Bay Badminton Team. When we say successful, we definitely mean it! Looking back at 2013, when the North Bay Badminton Team was founded, it had a core of seven members from four different local schools. The team participated in the Northern Ontario Badminton Association for the first time, putting North Bay on the map. Over the initial year the team earned a grand total of 24 medals across all players and events.
Skip forward exactly one year and the North Bay Badminton Team is on fire. With a total of 16 team members, the team racked up 56 medals, as well as the U16 Girls Singles, U16 Girls Doubles and U16 Overall Team Trophy at the NOBA Championships in February. This was an emotional tournament for all as since the NOBA Championships' inception 39 years ago, 2015 will be the first time in history that North Bay has their name on any of those trophies.
Coach, and organizer Kurt Tempelmans Plat (winner of the CAO Trailblazer provincial award in September) could not be more proud of his team's accomplishments.
"I was speechless," he said in a release.
"Our team is only two years old, and here we are, the best U16 team in all of Northern Ontario. The amount of work that this team puts into their practices, and their tournaments is even more than I ask of them, its incredible. It was an emotional year for me, my team grew very quickly, and I was overwhelmed with pride to see us building not only a foundation for badminton in the North Bay area, but a very strong one at that. I can only imagine what the 2015-2016 season has in store for us."
The team held their end of the year banquet last weekend to celebrate the year's success as well as pass out individual awards. Taylor Jacque, and Tyson Periard took home the Team MVP awards, while Marina Sinicrope and Nich Babich took home the Most Improved awards.
Tempelmans Plat is very excited to continue building his programs through his business, KTP Athletics, during the coming years.
"We are looking for more players of all ages and all skill levels," he said.
"We have programs starting at 7 years of age, that have recreational focuses as well as programs that feed into the North Bay Badminton Team."
The spring badminton session will be starting on March 29, with summer camps also coming quickly. For more information about badminton programming for all ages in the North Bay area, visit www.ktpathletics.com or contact Kurt at [email protected].
