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CANADA: BADMINTON GOES MAJOR LEAGUE FOR A WEEKEND

** This NEW SHUTTLENWS report is presented by YANG YANG Badminton Products and their Western USA agents BADMINTON ALLEY. **

February 2, 1999 (NEW SHUTTLENWS) - The sport of badminton, a minor sport in Canada, will go big time for at least one weekend when the 1999 Devlin and Friendship Cups competitions are staged at the world-class Skydome in Toronto, Ontario from February 12 to February 14. The Skydome is a modern 50,000-seat sports arena that is the home for the major-league Toronto Bluejays baseball club, the Toronto Raptors NBA basketball team and the Toronto Argonauts Canadian-style football team.

Contesting the Devlin Cup will be two under-21 national teams, one from the USA and another from the host country, Canada. The Friendship Cup is a three-team under-21 tournament involving the USA and Canada under-21 national teams and for this year, a team from the Netherlands. Both competitions are held yearly with the venue rotating betwen the USA and Canada.

This year's twin tournaments are being staged as part of an Asian Festival which is timed to coincide with the Chinese New Year celebrations. Around 200,000 people are projected to attend the weekend's festivities which will feature Chinese acrobats, martial artists, dragon dances, Oriental arts and crafts, and Oriental cuisine, aside from the badminton.

According to Ian Moss, executive director of Badminton Canada, holding the Devlin and Friendships Cups as part of the Asian Festival at the Skydome is expected to give the sport a big boost in the Greater Toronto area, specially with the number of people that are expected to attend. Mr. Moss did caution though that the badminton tournament will be just one of the attractions at the festival.

Badminton will also get a chance for some television exposure at least in the Greater Toronto area with all of the local television stations planning to send news video crews to cover the Asian festival.

Several Toronto badminton fans were greatly delighted at the prospect of an international badminton competition being held at their Skydome, when they were informed of the Devlin and Friendship Cups by New Shuttlenws. All said that they would be at the tournament, and one Indonesian expatriate expressed the hope that he would be able to meet one of his badminton heroes, Ardy Wiranata, the former Indonesian star player who is now the USA national coach. (Ardy Wiranata's attendance at the Devlin and Friendship Cups has not been confirmed).

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