So you’d think that badminton is not your usual Friday night activity eh?  Think again.  I walked into ClearOne Badminton Center on a Friday night, and the place was buzzing with energy.  All twelve courts were being used: there were private lessons being held, rackets being strung, friendly matches being played, there were families, high school kids, college kids.  It seemed like this was the place to be on a Friday night.  Who knew?  In the past five or so years, I have seen badminton really grow in popularity here in Vancouver.  As someone who use to play in badminton tournaments and now plays for recreation, I see the difference between the seemingly exclusive world of badminton then, and the increasingly trendy sport that it is now.  A lot of this is thanks to Darryl Yung and his brainchild, ClearOne Badminton Center, which he co-runs with Bob Milroy.  It was quite a challenge to find a time to meet up with Darryl, and unfortunately I did not get the chance to chat with Bob.  Evidently these are extremely busy men.  Here is an excerpt of the interview I had with Darryl.  We talked about his experience at the ‘96 Olympics, why he chose to start ClearOne Badminton Center in Vancouver, and the vision that he and Bob have for badminton here in North America.

First off, could you introduce yourself and give us a little background information about Clearone Badminton Center? D: My name is Darryl Yung, I am the CEO of ClearOne Badminton Centers.  We started the center in 2003, with 6 courts.  In 2006, we added 12 more.  We’re starting to expand into different regions, and looking to grow our program into one of the largest in Canada.  In fact, I think it is pretty much one of the largest now, and hopefully it can be the largest in North America.That’s kind of unique, isn’t it? I don’t really know of any other badminton center that has such lofty goals.D: Yes it is.  And my partner was here, Bob is part of the expansion part of this, and we really see ourselves having 10-12 centers, maybe 15, by the end of it. It’s not easy and maybe ambitious but we’re hoping that that’s the line that we’re going. The US is a very big market as well. I think definitely badminton in the whole of North America can grow still.How did your experience at the Olympics in 96 influence your goals here?D: Having played and competed as an athlete for about 10 years on the world circuit. My last one, the last events I played was the Olympics. Basically having a full stadium and seeing how popular badminton was in the US, actually, and it hadn’t been very popular for many years. But the Olympics being sold out with their five thousand seat stadium, which was probably too small for the event, it actually was amazing. It showed that people, from everywhere, really were excited about it.  They were scalping tickets there for badminton. You never hear of that, it’s always about hockey.Especially in North America. D: Exactly. That really motivated me to further badminton, even as I stopped as a player. I wanted to continue in the sport and do a business and help young kids reach the Olympics as well. That’s kind of the goal that I had, and Bob shares that same vision, being a BPF (Badminton Players Federation) President. He’s basically been on the circuit over ten years and reached as high as 18 in singles, which is very difficult. And we both see the same thing, we see North America as being one of the powerhouses.  And hopefully we can move it from Asia to over here and have a large badminton circuit here.  So yes, definitely, it motivated me.So he (Bob) is a recent addition to ClearOne?D: Yeah, he was brought in June of 09, and basically is working alongside with me.  And we have the same vision.  We really see ourselves growing ClearOne centers all over the place.  We are planning to expand more, and we will be together on those. He is the President of ClearOne.  But that’s behind the lines, I mean, I run these two centers and I’ll always do them.  But he works here, and we’re training a lot of Olympics athletes here right now.  Probably half of the national team is here.  And we’re trying to grow COBA (ClearOne Olympic Badminton Academy).  And we have a lot of players from different parts of Canada coming in, and hopefully international athletes as well.  We already have some requesting to come in.  We train every day, about 24 hours a week.  7:30am to 9:30am, then 1:30 to 3:30pm.Why did you decide to start ClearOne here in Vancouver? D: Well, there is a large Asian population here, which is helpful, because everybody know the sport already, in places like Hong Kong, China, Indonesia.  Hence I brought a lot of these top X players, and now they are coaching a lot of our top athletes.  Yeah, Vancouver, especially Richmond seemed like the best starting ground, because there a lot of Asian people here, who already know the sport.  I think Vancouver, as a city, is so international and so metropolitan, that it attracts a lot of people from all over the world to come, and you know, even if tourists come in, we hope to attract the tourist population as well, and badminton will become a trendy sport where people can come for a week, and they can come in for a couple nights to play badminton.  They might choose this as an activity with their family, and certainly we have a lot of people coming from all over the world.

At first, you’d think that this is strictly a sports center, and only people who already play badminton will take notice, but this seems to be changing.  Tell me about that.D: Yeah, the tourist thing has been done in LA, and a lot of places are gravitating to the tourism market.  I’m not saying they will train a lot, but they might pick it up as a recreational activity and it really starts there and gets the city behind them.Let’s talk about the vision of ClearOne. D: The vision of ClearOne is to have many centres and to have many places to play badminton.  So that it becomes a household sport in Canada, and in North America.  We hope to host a lot of events and exhibitions and promote our athletes and world athletes.How about the entertainment aspect of badminton?  Here in Canada, even people who don’t play hockey watch it, for entertainment.  In Asia, badminton is like what hockey is for us here.  Do you think badminton can become as entertaining as hockey? D: I think it will help if we get more television coverage and if we do more public events.  Maybe it doesn’t make television right away, but eventually some stations will cover it.  For example, Fairchild covered some of our badminton events.  So it will grow, from there.  It just takes time.  We are hoping that it will become more like hockey.  It might not be as big as hockey, but certainly it can be of entertainment value.  It will be on TV, and it will be worth 30 or 40 dollars to go to a badminton event.  Last year, for the Racket Rally, it was full at the Oval, and tickets were 50 dollars, so it shows that there is enough demand.  So like you said, if it is on TV more, demand will grow.Do you think ClearOne will put Vancouver on the map, in terms of the badminton world? D: Bob would tell you more, he comes from Edmonton, and Denmark, and he has seen what has happened there, he has seen different regions, he has studied them.  He sees that we have something different here, in Vancouver, and that is what drew him here to ClearOne.  He really wants to help bring it to another level.  And he really saw that we have a different structure here at ClearOne, with the way the programs are run and the way the staff has bonded together to train the kids.  It is about ClearOne, it is about creating a superior product.  And they are all for that common goalWhen you say ‘product’, are you talking about the players? D: Yes, the product is the players.  It is the whole gamut of training a player to become an elite athlete and to give recreational players a place to play.  It is about offering badminton products for sale, and employing a lot of the top athletes so that they can earn money to travel as athletes.  Also, we cover the whole range of training, from adults to little kids to high athletes to intermediates, to elites to super elites, and now the academy, which is the highest.  We are also launching a masters program here.  There is so much about badminton that a normal person doesn’t know.  There is so much technical, mental, physical…every aspect of the sport.  In this new program, there are different coloured bands, and with each band comes a book, that describes what you need to do to go on to the next level.About what you said about badminton becoming more popular, I see that as well.  When I first started playing, about 8 years ago, I only saw badminton when I went to the club, like VRC or VLT when there was tournament there.  There were a few people who played and every tournament you saw the same people, and at the clubs you had to wear all white, and in order to be a member you had to play a lot of money.  It just seemed very exclusive.  And now when I come to Clearone, there are beginners, kids, families, people training in the Academy.  I mean, all levels are covered, and that is something that I never thought I would see even 5 years ago. D: Yeah, that’s exactly right.  This was the case when for me too.  I never thought that ClearOne could be like this.  But it is good, and the sport is definitely growing.  And now it can be a sport for everyone.  It can be an activity that people do on a Friday night, and a lot of other centers are popping up.  Badminton is becoming more trendy. And really that is all you need; for it to be trendy, right?  It’s amazing though.  I never thought that badminton could be so big.But that was your goal exactly, am I right? D: Yeah that was our goal, to create that market.  And now it is our goal to be even bigger.

For more information about ClearOne, check out their website http://www.clearonebadminton.com/