A Chinese coach came to Ottawa

Hugo Huang

May 31, 2014 at RA Center of Ottawa

Hugo Huang is a full Time Badminton Coach and the Vice president of Guangdong Province Badminton Association in China. He won the 18th Midea Cup World Chinese Badminton Championship 2011 Men’s Singles 40+ 3rd place and Men’s Doubles 30+ 3rd place. He had been communicated with Fei Tam, the president of Ottawa District badminton Association, in early May and expressed his wish to pay an informal visit to Ottawa and meet with Ottawa Badminton players but his itinerary wasn’t confirmed until the last week of May.

On May 31, 2 pm, a two hour round robin singles event was arranged so that 7 strong RA players would had chance to play against Hugo and each other. Invitees included Kenny Yuen, Kevin Tseng, Austin Flannigan, Kevin Stadnyk, Liam Woodside, Dan Nguyen and Eric Blanchard. The games among the top guns were quite intense and enjoyable to watch. Due to the time limit, each player must be replace by his partner when lost a rally point or had 3 consecutive winning, so the audience could only see the explosive power of smashing or the skill of tight net shots but no way to appreciate the player’s stamina but this arrangement would allow Hugo to meet more players in less time so the audience were quite happy with the exhibition. Hugo is accustomed to play against the young player half of his age and took up the challenges effortlessly. Everyone seemed enjoying the games and ready to go on for 7 rounds of good fights… unfortunately, Dan Nguyen, the uOttawa Team Captain, injured his ankle at the fifth round and was carried off the court so the challenges had to be ended at 4 pm.

From 4 to 6pm, Hugo played another set of RA players (Min Zhao, Yong Cai, Sen Yang, Sabrina Liu, Yafan Huang and Fei Tam). Compared to the first two hours of heated singles games, these friendly doubles matches were just a piece of cake for Coach Huang.

As a friendly gesture, Hugo and Fei had exchanged gifts. On behalf of ODBA, Fei has extended a warm invitation to Guangdong Badminton Association and welcome Hugo and his players come for more visits in the future.

Best wishes to the future badminton exchange between Guangdong and Ottawa!

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