Sherbrooke Badminton: Innovative New Style Emerges

Badminton tournaments could undergo a whole reform. This weekend, the University of Sherbrooke tested a new formula to make the sport more accessible and attractive, in a context where certain university badminton programs are cut.

We’re trying to figure out how we can make badminton more fun to watch on TV.explains Vert&Or badminton head coach, Anthony Bouthillier-Hénault.

The University of Sherbrooke faced the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, the University of Montreal and the École de Technologie Supérieure.

Currently, tournaments are very long and difficult for the public to follow, since several matches take place at the same time and it is the players themselves who count the points. It is therefore practically impossible to know which university wins until the competition is over.

What is proposed is that instead of having several matches, that is to say one for each discipline, such as women’s singles or men’s doubles, it could be a single, long, continuous meeting which brings everything together.

It’s a big set of 55 points and it’s rolling, there’s no warm-up between sets. We arrive at 11, at 22, at 33 and a new match beginsclarifies a Vert&Or athlete, Renaud Perron. Everything will therefore take place on one and the same field and the scores will be compiled on a table.

The goal is to test a formula that will look a little more like a game basketball which is one team against the other teamunderlines the head coach.

Badminton Cups

A few weeks ago, McGill University announced the elimination of 25 sports teams. Badminton was one of them. The same scenario occurred at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi in 2022.

It is among other things with a view to restoring the image of sport that the reformulation was requested by the various leagues.

There is a reason why in the long term, they judged that it was not necessarily attractive or winning as a program and I think that basically, it comes from the culture we have in relation to badmintonbelieves Mr. Bouthillier-Hénault. He indicates that badminton is very popular in Asia and Europe, but that this is less the case here.

At the Quebec Student Sports Network, we are level 3 and the only reason we are at this level is really because of the popularitylaments another Vert&Or athlete, Sébastien Marchand.

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The rose and the thorn of badminton

Teamwork is also emphasized in this new version. It’s more dynamic because the whole team is on the sidelines cheering instead of having three games being played and no one knows who to cheer for.believes Mr. Perron.

But if players notice one thing, it’s that the games move much faster. In the usual formula, they play two sets of 21 points. Now it’s just an 11-point set before their teammates take over.

If it went badly, you penalize yourself, it really hurts your heart because you have just lost important points for your team and you can’t really make up for it, because you did your job and that’s it.adds Mr. Marchand.

The technical director of Badminton Québec, Christian Guibourt, was also on site. Its mandate was to assess whether it would be possible to integrate this formula into civilian badminton.

It’s about thinking with all the players in badminton. There are no more universities or Badminton Quebec. We are all here to try to ensure that badminton takes off againhe concludes.