Daffodil tournament concluded successfully over the weekend, here
are some of the highlights:

- There are 77 entries, the most ever in the tournament history.
Due to the higher than anticipated turnouts, the downside is the
women single and double event had to be played on Saturday evening
and 1 21 points game in men's double event, since the gym hour was
pre-booked. The tournament director promised that he'll be prepared
next year and hope to see as many if not more turnouts.

- Annie Po came out of semi-retirement to win the women's single
event, hopefully she'll be inspired to play in more tournaments.

- Grace Qiu and Evelina Shin teamed up to win the women's double. A
lot of us probably missed some fun match to watch in women's events,
Marty and Kale teamed up and played mixed style, it probalby was
fun for Marty to take the man's role for a change.

- In men's single, Peter Collins got to revenge his semi-final loss
in Washington closed againt Kenny Lu. Peter played steady
throughtout the whole match after some initial jitter
in the first game. Peter came from behind to win the first game,
lost the second game and took the third game convincingly.

- In mixed final, we saw a rematch of Washington closed mixed fianl
between Marty Fagnon/Robbie Hankins and Grace Qiu/Kenny Lu. The
very experienced pair of Marty/Robbie again won the match in 2 games
and they had to come from behind to take the 2nd game.

- Experience again prevailed in men's double, Andrew Soo/Robbie
Hankins won the final against the young Kenny Lu/Peter Collins in 2
games.

- Clinton Chen teamed up with more manly (badminton playing wise)
Grace Qiu in men's double event and lost a hard fought B's final
against "instant replay I'll show you how I made the bird drop over
the net" Tony Lee and John Tong. Some of the men are inspired and
want to participate in women's events, well, you have one year to
work on the figure.

- Young and improved Eric Yu played well in the tournament even
though he lost the men's B final match to very tough Kevin Yu (not
related). It showed that hard work does pay off, keep it up, Eric.

- There are quite a few juniors participating in the tournament.
It's great to see more young players enjoy playing badminton, even
though some of the more mature players would hate to lose to
the younsters.

- Yes, age and maturity still count, David Jeschke won the men's C
single final match against very young Gary Stendsland in 3 games.

- It's always a good thing no major injury happened, Alice Fong did
hurt her angle chasing the bird in a mixed match, they had to
default the match even though Alice was ready to play after 10
minutes of rest. We also saw her partner Rayomnd of Vancouver BC
showed his gentle touch caring/counseling his partner during the
injury.

- Maybe it's age, Some players could not participate due to injury.
Geoff Stendsland will be off for another 2 months. Ufilya Davis
found out about her injury right before the tournament and
had to pull out of the tournament the day before the tournament.
She was so ready for the tournament. She'll be off for 4 months.
Andrew Soo had to withdraw his mixed event due to some mysterious
injury. Get well soon, everyone.

- For those who could not attend the social afterwards, you missed
the free gourmet pizzas and some great door prizes (thanks to local
Sei Adachi and other sponsors). The grand prize is a $130 racquet
won by Diana (one of Kenny Lu's students), now she'll not have
excuse not to practice hard.

- We also want to thank everyone helping out in the tournament.
They worked hard to make the tournament run smoothly, of course, the
food, who can forget the little gourmet sandwiches and
the devil eggs.

See everyone in the State Open next month.