Ottawa District Badminton Association

The Ottawa and District Badminton Association (ODBA) is a group of Badminton clubs from Deep River, Brockville, Cornwall, Ottawa, Kanata, Carleton Place, Gloucester, Nepean, Pembroke, Orleans, Rockland, Petawawa, and Renfrew who are mutually interested in the sport of badminton and the promotion and enjoyment of the sport for their members via activities & contacts outside the scope of their home club.^[1][2]

General

The ultimate goal for this non-profit organization is to promote the sport of badminton through awareness programs, grass-roots programs, tournaments^[3][4], ranking systems monitored by ODBA, drop-in programs^[5], and equipment discount programs.

The O.D.B.A. is a member of: Badminton Ontario^[6] and Badminton Canada, and is supported by the Ontario Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Recreation.^[7]

Sponsorship Program

One of the ODBA objectives is to foster and promote the sport of badminton. As such, the ODBA Board is committed to supporting recreational and competitive badminton activities to maintain the current base of participants and to grow the sport within the Ottawa and District region. This includes adult and junior players of all calibres, from beginners considering to take up the sport, to intermediate players looking to improve their skills, to the national level players training at the High Performance Training Centre.^[8]

History

The Ottawa District Badminton Association came into being Friday January 10, 1930 when a meeting of 11 of the regional clubs met to form a governing body to control local badminton affairs. The clubs represented at this historical meeting were:

• Badminton Club of Ottawa +
• Rideau Badminton Club +
• Garrison Badminton Club +
• Church League (representing 10 league teams)
• P.L.D.G. Badminton Club +
• Glebe Community Badminton Club
• 38th Highlanders Badminton Club +
• G.G.F.G. Badminton Club
• Y.M.C.A Badminton Club
• Y.W.C.A. Badminton Club +
• Engineer’s Badminton Club +

+ Actual founding clubs with the formal acceptance of their membership requests by the first elected executive of the ODBA.

The first chairman selected to oversee the start of the new ODBA was H.S. Southam with Guy S. Macfarlane selected as secretary. A special follow up meeting January 23, 1930 saw the first ODBA executive elected by the clubs:

• Honorary President HS Southam
• President John B McRae
• Vice-President Col. EW Sansom
• Secretary WN Keenan
• Treasurer Guy S. Macfarlane

Costs for the clubs to join ODBA in 1930 were:

• Clubs of 50 or less $ 5.00
• Clubs of 51 to 100 $ 7.50
• Each additional 100 members $ 2.50

In the early days of ODBA the Badminton Club of Ottawa was far and away the strongest club in the region being the holders of all the major club trophies of the time and with national champions of the day as members

Through the 1930s the ODBA has several national champions playing out of the Badminton Club of Ottawa

• Margret Robertson
• Ruth Robertson
• Bev Mitchell
• George "Junior" Goodwin

In the 1930s ODBA was recognized as one of the leading badminton centers in Canada and on 2 occasions hosted the Canadian Badminton Championships (1930 and 1935)

During the 1940’ the sport of badminton suffered a severe downturn and ODBA was no different. ODBA in effect ceased to exist until 1955 when Dave Waddell put a lot of effort into reviving the sport of badminton in the region and again getting ODBA up and running.

After the war years the clubs that made up ODBA now became:

• Commerce Badminton Club
• St Paul’s Badminton Club
• CMHC Badminton Club
• Navy Badminton Club
• Fisher Park Badminton Club
• All Saints Badminton Club
• RCAF Badminton Club
• YMCA Badminton Club

By the end of the decade the 1959 ODBA championships had 133 entries and had to play the event over 5 days - badminton was back in the ODBA

The 1960s saw a slow but steady growth of the ODBA with one major addition, the RA Badminton Club, joining the ODBA by the end of the 1960 there were just under 20 club’s belonging to the ODBA

The 1970s saw continued growth and led by the Commerce Badminton Club and the RA Badminton Club the level of badminton in the region was again on the rise. In 1979 RA Badminton Club member John Czich won the Canadian Men’s Singles - the first title for the region since 1936.

The late 70’s and early 1980s saw the ODBA attain the largest number of clubs in its history (over 30) and badminton was booming.

The later part of the 1980s saw a small downturn in the club numbers which by 1989 were down to 9 clubs.

The 1990s again brought a turn in the fortunes of the ODBA with continued growth and a club total that eventually reach 24 by the end of the century but more importantly the sport was again booming with National Championships, the Canadian Open and many other events of national importance hosted by the RA Badminton Club and with many ODBA members winning national titles highlighted by Mike Bitten and Bryan Blanchard winning 5 consecutive National Men’s Doubles Titles:

• Bryan Blanchard
• Mike Bitten^{[9][10][11][12]}
• Doris Piche^{[13][14][15][16]}
• Mike Beres^{[17][18][19][20]}

The early part of the new millennium has seen ODBA become the largest region (in terms of members) in the province and the emergence of new stars along with the old. Mike Beres and Andrew Dabeka have been joined as national champions by Kara Solmundson, Kyle Hunter, and Stephane Wojcikiewicz.

At this time in the history of ODBA (2005), Ottawa is arguably the leading region for badminton in Canada being the largest region for the sport in Ontario, with numerous national champions and unlimited potential for growth.

Board of Directors

Currently the Board of Directors makes decisions for the Ottawa District with regards to Badminton.^[21]

References

1. ^ http://www.badmintonottawa.com/odba.php
2. ^ http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=cf23addd-c0f2-4666-a4b9-07fd6fd87913&sponsor=
3. ^ http://www.soong.ca/images/ODBA2010Results.pdf
4. ^ http://ottawabadminton.blogspot.com/p/mark-grantham.html
5. ^ http://www.facebook.com/pages/ODBA-Sunday-Drop-in-Badminton-Program/154574434577963
6. ^ http://www.ontariobadminton.on.ca/client/oba/obawebsite2.nsf/webaboutuslookup/district~A53FE379905E0C6B85256D6D004DE73F/?opendocument&id=1
7. ^ http://www.badmintonottawa.com/odba.php
8. ^ http://www.badmintonottawa.com/Sponsorship.htm
9. ^ http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/bi/mike-bitten-1.html
10. ^ http://www.rabadminton.com/Mike-Bitten.htm
11. ^ http://www.rabadminton.com/Hall-of-Fame.htm
12. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_National_Badminton_Championships
13. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badminton_at_the_1992_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_Singles
14. ^ http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/pi/doris-piche-1.html
15. ^ http://www.rabadminton.com/Doris-Piche.htm
16. ^ http://www.rabadminton.com/Hall-of-Fame.htm
17. ^ http://www.rabadminton.com/Hall-of-Fame.htm
18. ^ http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/be/mike-beres-1.html
19. ^ http://www.canoe.ca/2000GamesBiosA2M/beres.html
20. ^ http://www.olympic.ca/en/athletes/mike-beres/
21. ^ ODBA Board of Directors 2010-2011