2008 BCD Badminton Tournament Director Note

2008 BCD tournament came and gone, we have a great turnout. There were over 130 players signed up and most of the players are from State of Washington. This gave us an indication that the sport of Badminton is gaining more players locally. Beside the local players, we have players from Oregon and Spokane. We do want to thank everyone for participating in the tournament. A special thank to our tournament registrars – Duncan and Joyce Lau. The entries came in via mail, hand deliveries and emails! With one exception (similar names confusion and was corrected before the tournament started), they did a great job in making sure that all the entries were entered with the matching double players so that the list was ready on time for the draw.

Our new T-shirt designer Michael Lau came up with a new design and as a matter of fact he came up with several designs for us to choose from. So we are set for our design for the next tournament.

When I asked Julie Lau to help as chef to provide the food/drink to keep us fed and energized through out the tournament, she did not realize that we would have over 130 players to feed. It was a bit of a challenge for her to budget and purchase the amount of bread, peanut butter & jelly, meat, ripe banana, Gatorade mix etc. for that many people. With the help of Brandon Lau and last minute recruits of Pauline So and Florette Lam. We managed to serve as much food and drink as we can provide.

The level of playing is getting higher each year and the age of some of our players getting younger, we keep on seeing the continue improvement of the younger players, there're less and less so called "easy games" in the first round. Also this year we added the recreation flight for first time tournament players and had a good turnout. Thanks to the teams from Everett Community College.

Serena Ho and Jaikannan Ramamoorthy won the mixed doubles against Katherine Ip and Jack Liao.

Young Rochelle Ng won the women’s singles by winning against a couple older players in semi (Ming Ye) and finals (Villette Cuthbert). She is also the runner up for women’s doubles and won the C mixed doubles with Shu Ito.

Steven Ip took his first singles crown by beating Chengyang Li in two games. Steven didn’t let up and kept the pressure on in both games.

In women’s doubles, the young pair Clara Lam and Rochelle Ng did not have enough to win against the experience pair of Masako Tsuoka and Yukiko Kumakawa. They did great to reach the final.

Finally, Sisavat Keobounmey and Vu Vo had to play a tough and very close 3 games match against Tim Moon and Kevin Yu. Good news for all players and bad news for Long is that he’s no longer eligible to play BCD.

We do want to thank for all the people that help, without you, we are not able put on the tournament. Hopefully, we did not miss anyone.

Registration – Katie Wah, Doris Ng, Jillian Lau, Ignasius Sellie

Score Update – Rochelle Ng

Announcer - Tao Yuan, Katherine Ip, Villette Cullette, Jasmine Lau

Tournament Desk - Patrick Ip, Clinton Chen, Katherine Ip

T-shirt design – Michael Lau

Chefs – Julie Lau, Brandon Lau, Pauline So, Florette Lam

Cleanup – Justin Suen

Treasurer - Helen Roome

Finally, my special thanks to Katherin Ip and Clinton Chen, with their patience and great encouragement/support, I was able to pull through my first tournament.

Hope to see you all next year.

James Lau & Clinton Chen

Co-Director 2008 BCD Tournament