MIT Badminton Club

If you are not a student but wish to play badminton at MIT, you might consider playing with the MIT Community Badminton Club.

Club Highlight

• Training: We hold weekly practices with physical coniditioning and drills run by our coaches Brandon Lai (Mass. State Men Singles Winner) and Marc Lai.
• Intercolligiate League: We compete as one of the strongest teams in the North Eastern Intercollogiate League.
• Team Tournament: We form a combined all-star team with regional schools and strong players in the local community to compete in a highly competitive annual tournament.
• Boston Open: We are proud to host one of the largest badminton tournaments in the country, bringing world class badminton to the MIT community. Boston Open draws international players from all over the world (including Tony Gunawan, formerly MD Olympic 2000 Gold for Indonesia and the reigning MD World Champion for USA) to compete intensely in the prominent 3-day event. Boston Open also draws a large community involvement as competitors, volunteers, line judges, and sponsors.

The MIT Badminton Club offers one of the best badminton program and facilities in the nation. Through student programs and community involvement, we are proud to be part of the effort in promoting badminton in the US. Your gift is important and will help ensure the continuation of this successful program.

Access and Rules

• During Fall 2002, the MIT Athletic Department renovated the entrance to Rockwell Cage and other gyms. Participants now swipe their MIT Card to go through a turnstile. Students can use their student ID as an athletic card after they get it validated at the du Point customer service window at no cost.
• Please see this page for information about how to obtain an Athletic Card (or validate a MIT ID for athletics) if you are not a current MIT student. You must either be MIT-Affiliated or invited by the club to help train our members in order to play.

There are some rules that everyone are expected to follow while playing in the club.

• do not play singles when there are people waiting.
• do not take an unreasonable time warming up on the court when there are people waiting.
• vacate the court after playing one game to fifteen points.
• wear clothing appropriate for badminton i.e. no outdoor shoes.
• vacate the courts and clear up as soon as the caretaker starts closing the gym.

Schedule

Intercollegiate League

history: the leagues started two years ago by representatives from MIT, Harvard, BU and Lily Lai, the league coordinator. BU was the 2002 champions; we were the 2003 champions.. GO MIT =P!

participating schools: MIT, BU, Harvard (pending), Cornell, Yale, Wellesley (either as part of MIT team or Harvard team)

who can participate: all undergraduate and graduate students

projected start/end date of games: First games will begin the week of October 13 - Mid November (schedule to come). If we are unable to complete all the games in this period (which we probably won't) then will start again mid February and end in Mid-March. (so no worries about conflicts with studying for Finals)

games: each school has one away and one home, which sums to 6-8, depending on Harvard's status. We will be traveling to Yale and Cornell for their home games. Depending on what day their home games are, we will probably leave the night before and come back immediately after the game. Essentially, this means we'll be making 2 one-day trips, but hey.. free trip to Connecticut and new york!

format of matches: 2MS, 2MD, 2WS, 1WD, 2MXD (one more MD game and one more WS game than in past years)

practice times and scrimmage times: Tuesdays (if we get time)and Sundays are strictly for training and home games (since Sunday, I have agreed to switch game days with BU so now BU home games are on Fridays and MIT home games are on Sunday). Fridays are for training and scrimmage, which means Community players are occasionally invited to share two of the four courts. This will allow us to mix with better players from the community.

Pictures

Club Officers

Upcoming and Current Events

Boston Open 2004 (March 19-21, 2004)

Each year, the MIT Badminton Club hosts the Boston Open Badminton Tournament. The Boston Open has established itself as one of the largest tournament staged in the U.S. Featuring many top U.S. and Canadian players, substantial prize money and a solid reputation built over the last several years, the tournament promises a weekend of excellent badminton, full of drama and excitement.

Congratulations to the Boston Open 2004 Winners!

Jackaphan Thanat, originally from Thailand, went through the entire tournament (both Men's Singles and Mixed Doubles) without losing a single game. He defeated Piotr Mazur, from Poland, in the semifinals. Khan Malaythong defeated Raju Rai to make it to the men's singles finals. Melinda Keszthelyi (from Massachusetts :) defeated Valerie Loker (Canada) to make it to the women's singles finals.

We've made great DVDs of the finals matches! If you're interested in a Boston Open DVD (2003 is available now, 2004 will be available when it's done), please contact Greg Dancer.

Past Events

Boston Open 2003 (March 14-16, 2003)

This year's Boston open was held in MIT's DuPont gym area (Rockwell Cage) from 3pm Friday March 14 to 4:30pm Sunday March 16. Here are the results from the open event finals:

Norm/Mary (Mixed doubles consolation)

MIT/BU/Harvard Intercollegiate Badminton League (February/March, 2003)

April 2003 Update: MIT defeated BU 6-1 to win the Intercollegiate Badminton League this year! Congratulations to everyone on the teams.

MIT Varsity defeated BU Varsity 5-2 in our first match, played on 2/16/03. There were several very close games, and both teams played well.

Here is the expected schedule:

BU Games: Fridays, 6:00 - 9:45pm, Sundays, 5:00pm-7:30pm
Harvard Games: Fridays, 6:30pm - 10:00pm
MIT Games: Friday 7:30pm -10:30pm, Sundays 1:00 - 4:00pm

Sunday 16 Feb	Boston University (JV/Varsity) vs MIT (Varsity/JV)
Friday 21	Boston University (Varsity) vs Harvard
Friday 21	MIT (JVarsity) vs MIT (Varsity)
Friday 28	MIT (Varsity/JV) vs Boston University (Varsity/JV)
Sunday 2 March	Boston University (Varsity/JV) vs MIT (Varsity/JV)
Friday 7	Harvard vs Boston University(Varsity)
Friday 21	MIT (JV) vs BU (Varsity)
Friday 21	Harvard vs MIT (Varsity)
Friday 4 April	MIT (Varsity) vs Harvard

Our league team organizers are Yvonne Lee and Michael Ho.

Other Tournaments

Looking for a badminton challenge? The list of USA Badminton sanctioned tournaments can be found here. The Marblehead Club also hosts several tournaments a year.

Useful Information

Supplies

Cliff Wenn is the local and official vendor for the MIT Invitational Team Tournament and the 2002 Boston Open.

• WinningRackets.com also sells badminton supplies. They now carry Tai Lai birds and offer them at competitive prices. Cliff Wenn from WinningRackets.com says: "We are local and can have products dropped off to you at MIT. We also provide stringing services for quite a few of your club members now." (508) 650-0196

If you are willing to go mail-order, HiQuaSports.com carries very high quality birds (HiQua Blue is IBF approved) and other performance badminton items.

• Email William Chan and mention that you're affiliated with the MIT Badminton Club to receive a substantial bulk discount for shuttles. (MITBaC members only please!)

Another mail-order vendor, Rooney Choong in Maryland is a badminton supplies vendor who offers excellent prices and service. He can be reached at Supreme Sports Supply.

• Supreme Sports Supply, P.O. Box 855, Rockville, MD 20848, (301) 871-3690

Asby Sports and San Diego Badminton Supply are both in California. They are good resources if you can't find something locally, or if you are willing to wait a few days for shipping (though I have ordered badminton rackets from San Diego Badminton Supply using next day mail before).

• Asby Sports Inc. - Michael Ho recommends Asby, the largest badminton specialty store in the country.
• San Diego Badminton Supply - Thomas Lin recommends the San Diego Badminton Supply, which offers good prices, fast shipping, and even free Yonex shirts with $100+ racket purchases. The San Diego Badminton Supply often shows up at local tournaments to offer supplies and restringing.

Here are some other resources for badminton supplies. Many sporting goods shops will sell cheap badminton rackets. Be careful if you get your badminton racket restrung at a tennis shop, as they will sometimes string badminton rackets incorrectly.

• Nevada Bob, 106 Milk St., Boston. (617) 695-1971
• Tennis and Squash Shop, 67 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge (Harvard Square). (617) 864-8800
• Brine's Sporting Goods, 29 Brattle St., Cambridge (Harvard Square). (617) 876-4218
• Nova Sports, P.O. Box 413, Stony Brook, NY 11790-0413, (516) 689-5536

Shuttle Steaming

Have you ever noticed that your shuttles seem to break easily? Well, that's because they are dry and brittle. The solution is to steam the shuttle before use. Below is Robert's recipe on steamed shuttles taken from FLYING Shuttlecocks (Robert is the official Boston Open steamer). If you have a different proven recipe, please let us know!

48 hours before play:
   1. Carefully remove shuttlecocks from tube.  Keeping one end covered.
   2. Pour into tube cup and half of cold water.
   3. Replace lid.
   4. Rotate and shake tube for 20 seconds.
   5. Remove lid to release water.
   6. Supply steam to moisten inside of tubes for a period of 20 seconds.
   7. Carefully replace shuttlecocks one by one back to the tub.  Replace
      lid.
   8. Stand tube with cork base upwards.

Note: Don't forget if you play tomorrow, use only one cup of water.

Advise from a past webmaster: follow the above, but if you are playing 
  within 24 hours, use half of the time (10 seconds) in step #4, and  
  don't apply step #6. Reason: It's better to have easy-broken but 
  'crisp' shuttlecocks than solid but heavy ones.

Useful Links

Below are some badminton related homepages that may be useful.

• Badminton Canada
• Boston University Badminton
• Harvard University Badminton
• International Badminton Federation
• New England Badminton home page
• Northeast Region Badminton Association
• U.S.A. Badminton Association
• Yale Badminton Club

Some badminton videos are available online here.

Page hits since 10/30/01:

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For more information regarding the MIT club please contact "mitbac dash exec at mit dot edu."

MIT Badminton Club Home Page - maintained by Thomas Lin - stay tuned for more updates