REGINA, Saskatchewan — Wascana Badminton Club is a badminton club at St. Francis Elementary in Regina. It is a nonprofit badminton club that provides recreational, non-competitive and sociable badminton games. The Club focuses on building adults who are badminton enthusiasts all year round except during the summer. 

It is the one badminton club that is older than even the Badminton World Federation (badminton’s highest governing body in the world). Before the game of badminton had a world governing body, the Wascana Badminton Club in Regina was busy developing the game of badminton in Regina.

In his master’s thesis titled “Badminton in Saskatchewan, 1919-1993,” Chin-Aik Tan gave a detailed explanation of how the Wascana Badminton Club has contributed to the development of badminton in Saskatchewan. While Tan’s thesis stopped in the year 1993, the Wascana Badminton Club has continued with the excellent job they started in 1930 way beyond 1993.

Over 91 years and still counting, the Wascana Badminton Club has been improving on the game, not just in Regina but also in Canada and beyond. Most badminton clubs today have borrowed from the Wascana Badminton Club’s wealth of experience. In addition, since the Club focuses on adults, many of the club members have been part of badminton development all over Canada.

Wascana Badminton Club rarely plays singles as priority is given to doubles games to allow more players to participate. It uses the standard 21-point scoring system of playing badminton.

When Canada joined the other seven nations to start what is now known as the Badminton World Federation in 1934, the Wascana Badminton Club was already on the ground to help develop the game from the Saskatchewan province.

The Wascana Badminton Club started in 1930 due to the coming together of some groups of individuals in Regina who wanted to develop badminton in the city. The reason for this was that after establishing the then Canadian Badminton Association in 1921 (now Badminton Canada), Regina was lagging in having a club that brings badminton lovers together.

In 1928, seven years after the establishment of Badminton Canada, Doctor Alpert was elected as the pioneer president of the Club. One of the agreements reached in the meeting was the building of a clubhouse. The construction of the clubhouse began after funds were raised from the sale of shares. Finally, two years after the meeting, the clubhouse was ready, and the Club started operation.

The clubhouse was known as the Wascana Winter Club after adding a building in 1934 to offer other recreation activities like curling and skating.

The clubhouse was later used as the recruiting center for the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve from 1941 to the end of the war. Eight years after the war, a curling rink was added to the Wascana Badminton Clubhouse. Unfortunately, five years later, disaster struck and the clubhouse’s roof collapsed because of heavy snow. Curling stopped at the clubhouse, but badminton continued until 1977 when another tragedy struck again; this time, it was a fire. The Club had to start using the city’s school gymnasiums for its games.

One of the best players in the Club’s history was James Cuthbert, who played from 1936 to 1950. During this period, he won seven triple crowns in the men’s single, one men’s doubles, and a mixed doubles championship organized at the Wascana Winter Club and Regina district.

“We received notification from St Francis School that they have canceled our booking for the remainder of the season due to the COVID pandemic. As such, badminton is officially canceled for the reminder of the season,” said the Club Administrator, Michelle W., in April of 2020.

However, the Club is now open to badminton games.

This is not the first time the club is witnessing events that bring about their closing up. A lot of other issues came up along the line. Currently, the club is not playing competitive games. Some of these issues could have made the Club close up permanently and be long forgotten, but all that is not important. The most important thing is that the Club made it through it all and is still standing, offering the best in adult badminton and impacting the younger generations in many ways.

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