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The McGill badminton squad鈥檚 Henry Pan, coach Margaret Lan Shen (centre) and team captain Laurianne St-Onge talk strategy at a practice in the Currie Gym last Monday in preparation of the upcoming Quebec badminton championships. / Photo: Owen Egan

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By Jim Hynes

The McGill Reporter

They get by on the bare minimum of practice time and compete before only a handful of spectators, but the members of McGill鈥檚 badminton teams take their sport and their commitment to it every bit as seriously as their counterparts on the school鈥檚 higher-profile varsity squads.

With only six hours made available to them per week, the team members have had to look outside the Currie Gym walls for more practice time this year, explains team captain Laurianne St-Onge.

Technique, time and a little magic

鈥淟ast fall, a number of us participated in a fitness program put together by Ben Harack, one of the players, and most of us play with other teams and clubs to get more playing time, so that helps,鈥� says St-Onge, a Levis, Que. native in the final year of an Honourers degree in Latin American and the Caribbean studies.

Luckily, St-Onge and her teammates can also count on experienced coach Margaret Lan Shen to help them improve their games. The second-year coach, who trained with the Chinese national badminton team in her native Shanghai, started playing the game at age nine and competed in national level competitions between the ages of 13 and 18.

鈥淢argaret, has a lot to teach us in terms of techniques,鈥� St-Onge says. 鈥淪he has many 鈥榤agic tricks,鈥� as I like to call them.鈥�

Indeed, for Lan Shen, who operates the Future Star Badminton School when she鈥檚 not helping out at McGill, helping players improve is all about teaching technique and time spent working on the court.

鈥淭o become a better player usually someone would need a minimum of 8-10 hours per week of training,鈥� Lan Shen says. 鈥淲ith the time we have, we have to give 120 per cent in every training session.鈥�

Software problem

鈥淢y first feeling about badminton in Canada is: Great hardware but weak software, which means that we have a good gym in every school, but we don鈥檛 develop enough coaching knowledge here,鈥� Lan Shen says. 鈥淲e still have a lot to learn from Asian countries in this matter. Because badminton is a very technical sport, much more than many people think. I think that we need to have more people involved in this game at a young age. Right now, most people only play it for fun.鈥�

That said, this year鈥檚 McGill squads feature a number of hard working standouts with impressive badminton skills. On the men鈥檚 side, Henry Pan, a 19-year-old science sophomore from Saskatoon who earned a bronze medal in men鈥檚 singles the Provincials as a first-year player last season, has become a dominant force. And the women鈥檚 team features veteran Annie Laforest, a third-year medical student from Laval who, together with partner Anna Durrant, won gold in women鈥檚 doubles last year.

Other notables include women鈥檚 doubles standout Vivian Pham, a first-year Arts student from Ottawa, and second-year men鈥檚 singles specialist Aatman Ajmera, a Materials Engineering student from Mumbai, India.

The Quebec Mixed and Individual Badminton Championships take place at the Universit茅 de Montreal, March 10-11.