Team News

Badminton Team “Roared” at Cedar Hills Elementary

400 students and staff at Cedar Hills Elementary school in Surrey were clapping and cheering at their gym on Friday afternoon May 21st. They were excited to see the Douglas College badminton champs – Alvin Lau, Stephanie Ko, and Ray Luo – demonstrating their skills in live action. Excitement began when Alvin and Ray opened with a men’s single match. Noise grew louder when Stephanie demonstrated how to attack her two male opponents. The students were shouting “go Stephanie go!” in a cacophonic symphony of encouragement. After teaching some badminton techniques, the team invited students to play. Hundreds of hands reached for the sky as everyone was eager to compete with our champions. Climax reached a height when teachers were invited to play. The students were screaming in delight to witness their teachers attempting to outwit our Canadian National gold medal winners. Students were thrilled to see their favourite teachers like Mr. Kwan and Mr. Leong scoring points against our team. When the game was over, many students flocked to meet with their heroes asking for autographs. The session was packed with fun, laughter and exhilaration. The Cedar Hills community wishes to express their appreciation to the Douglas College badminton team for providing such an engaging and educational workshop.

Royals Athletes compete at Atwater Tourney

Royals athletes in conjunction with the Shuttle Sport Badminton Academy are competing in the Atwater International Badminton Championships at Montreal, Quebec. Follow each player as they move through the tournament brackets.

Alvin Lau
Melody Liang
Ruilin Huang
Stephanie Ko
Darren Hong
Shawn Zhang

CCAA Badminton Nationals

Shawn Zhang
photo by Jamie Anderson-Smith

The 2010 National Badminton Championships were held in Edmonton, Alberta this past weekend at the home of Alberta provincial badminton champions NAIT Ooks. BC champions Douglas College Royals were in no mood to give up their #1 national ranking or their national title they have won the previous four years. The team continued their domination by going 5-0 in the team round robin to wrap up their 5th straight national title!!

The individual event followed the team competition with Royals athletes in 4 of 5 finals. First up were defending Women's Doubles champions Stephanie Ko & Melody Liang. The duo had been dominant throughout the round robin competition and continued form through the final. They defeated the Ontario duo 21-9 and 21-7 in impressive fashion to win their third straight national title (4th for Melody Liang).

The men's doubles final followed and the Royals leader Alvin Lau was competing for a record 5th national title along with former Alberta athlete Darren Hong. All looked to be going to plan when Alvin & Darren won the first game. But slowly the Capilano duo fought back and managed to win the 2nd and 3rd games to take their first national title. Alvin Lau completes his collegiate career with an amazing 4 national titles, one runner up medal and numerous individual awards.

One of the highly anticipated matches of these nationals was the Women's singles match between RuiLin Huang of Douglas College and Sun Yang from host NAIT. A day earlier Sun Yang had defeated RuiLin in three intense and hard fought sets. However, there was going to be no repeat upset in this final as RuiLin changed her tactics and played a near perfect game to convincingly defeat her opponent 21-13, 21-9.

The final match of the championships was the Men's singles final between Royals KaiLai Zhang and Timothy Chiu of George Brown College. After a tentative start Shawn took full control of the match by winning 21-15, 21-12 to win his first national title and the 3rd for the Royals.

The Road to Victory

Alvin Lau
photo by Sean Velasco

Alvin Lau came to Douglas College in January 2006 after completing a Business degree at SFU. He came to follow his passion. “Despite everything I had experienced in the sport of badminton I still wanted to play for my school. There is something special about representing your institution.”

And now 5 years later, badminton experiences are not something that Alvin is missing. In 2010 he will be attending his 5th CCAA National Championships and chasing his 5th gold medal. He won the mixed doubles from 2006 – 2008 and then in 2009 won gold in men’s doubles.

This year he will be chasing the same title with Darren Hong, a new doubles partner. The quest for the 5th title took an interesting turn when Alvin, who is part of the # 1 ranked Canadian doubles team with club partner John Vandervet was asked to travel to Peru to represent Canada in the Thomas Cup. This was to Alvin’s second participation in this prestigious tournament that includes national teams from Peru, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico and Guatemala.

The tournament was to take place from February 16th&nsp;21st and Alvin would miss the BCCAA championships making him ineligible for the CCAA championships. After discussions with Badminton Canada, Alvin decided to travel to Peru and participate in the preliminary and quarter final matches and then depart Peru on Friday the 19th to arrive in Vancouver on the 20th at 12 noon.

He then took the 3pm ferry to Nanaimo and joined his team for dinner on Saturday night. He then collected his 5th BCCAA championships, in a hard fought 3 set match with Capilano University, as Douglas College won gold in 4 of the 5 events on Sunday.

“It was a long day of travelling but I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Everything that Douglas College, my team-mates and my coach (Al Mawani) have contributed to my development; I wanted to be here with them.” mentioned Lau after the victory.

Next up for Alvin is Edmonton and the CCAA championships where he hopes to lead Douglas College and BC to the team championships as well win a 5th CCAA gold medal. He will then continue to work, coach and show the next generation of players his passion for the game.

Read the article in the CCAA Newsletter

Royals Bring home Provincial Gold!

photo by Sean Velasco

A fantastic weekend for Royals badminton players as they take home Provincial gold in 4 of 5 events. They qualified 6 players to move on to the CCAA National Championships, hosted by NAIT March 4 – 6, 2010. View Game Archives

• Team Event: Douglas College-Gold
• Men's Singles: Shawn Zhang-Gold
• Women's Singles: RuiLin Huang-Gold
• Men's Doubles: Alvin Lau & Darren Hong-Gold
• Women's Doubles: Melody Liang & Stephani Ko-Gold
• Mixed Doubles: Anny Hu & Richard Liang-Bronze

A host of BCCAA Awards were also handed out over the weekend with the Royals taking the "lion's share" of the recognition. Here's a quick break down or view the press release

• BCCAA League All-Stars
• Shawn Zhang-Men's Singles
• RuiLin Huang-Women's Singles
• Alvin Lau & Darren Hong-Men's Doubles
• Melody Liang & Stephani Ko-Women's Doubles


• BCCAA Player of the Year
• Alvin Lau-Men
• RuiLin Huang-Women


• CCAA All-Canadian
• Alvin Lau-Men
• RuiLin Huang-Women


• CCAA Athlete of the Month
• Alvin Lau-Men
• RuiLin Huang-Women

Badminton Heads into Provincials

Darren Hong
photo by Sean Velasco

The Royals Badminton squad heads up to Vancouver Island University this weekend to take on the Provinces best at the BCCAA Provincial Tournament. The Royals have contenters for the Provincial tournament in each category and have their eyes set on gold! Complete tourney info or Watch the Sunday Medal matches LIVE!

Royals show well at International Tourney

Stephanie Ko
photo by Jerald Walliser

The Douglas College badminton team and the Shuttlesport Jr. team played in the Seattle Open this past weekend. The Senior team put on quite a show in winning 4 of the 5 events. The only loss was in the Men's Doubles event where Alvin Lau & Darren Hong lost to former World Champions Tony Gunawan & Howard Bach from USA.

Alvin and Darren put on quite a show for the large crowd against the 2 Americans but eventually lost 21-15 and 21-16. In the most exciting match of the tournament KaiLai Zhang defeated teammate Richard Liang in 3 hard fought intense games. This was KaiLai's first international win. In the Women's singles Rui Lin Huang showed her class by dominating and winning the event without dropping a game. She was in full control throughout the final defeating USA's Renata Baker 21-8, 21-4.

Stephanie Ko led the team with 2 wins. She partnered with Alvin Lau to defeat teammates Darren Hong & Melody Liang in the Mixed Doubles final then teamed up with Melody Liang to win the Women's Doubles event. The Shuttlesport Jr's also put in a fine effort with Jacky Chan(aged 15) and Alex Wong(aged 14) winning the consolation event in the Men's Doubles. In all 22 players traveled to Seattle from the Shuttlesport Douglas College Badminton Academy.

Lau and Liang win National Championship

Melody Liang
photo by Jerald Walliser

Douglas College's Alvin Lau continued his fantastic season by winning the 2009 Yonex National Championships in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Alvin teamed with fellow Shuttlesport club mate John Vandervet to win a thrilling 3 set match by a score of 17-21, 21-13 and 22-20 over rivals Toby Ng and Adrian Liu. After losing a hard fought mixed doubles final to partner Vandervet, Alvin used his experience from previous championships to re-focus and play a strong match to win his first senior National title. Alvin and John teamed up in October last year and have been undefeated winning 2 National Grand Prix events and the National Championships. Up next for Alvin is the Seattle Open before teaming up again with John for a trip to Peru for the Thomas Cup qualifiers.

Alvin Lau
photo by Jerald Walliser

Douglas teammate and Shuttlesport club mate Melody Liang also won her first National title at the 2009 Yonex National Championships. Melody with partner Xuelian were dominant throughout the Championships. Winning the Women's Doubles event without dropping a game. Melody now prepares for the Seattle Open next weekend.

RuiLin Huang (Lynn) nominated for Sport BC Award

Rui Lin Huang
photo by Jerald Walliser

Douglas College Badminton athlete RuiLin Huang (Lynn) has been selected as a finalist for the Sport BC College Athlete of the Year award. She was nominated along side Loren Liden of Langara College and Carmen Lapthorne of Camosun.

Lynn is in her second year at Douglas College and has amassed an impressive record at the college, national and international levels. She is currently undefeated and has won over 13 titles, including this years US Open. She has dominated the BCCAA Badminton scene since entering the league and hasn’t even dropped a set in college competition!

Lynn joins Lindsay Thompson as the only other Douglas College athlete to have been nominated for the award. Thompson won the award in 2007 along with the CCAA Female Athlete of the Year Award (across all sports).

Old Spaghetti Factory Player of the Week

Rui Lin Huang
photo by Jerald Walliser

RuiLin Huang (Lynn), a 2nd year student is a key member of the Douglas College badminton program. Huang was the 2008-09 CCAA Badminton Female Athlete of the Year as well as the Douglas College Female Athlete of the Year. In addition to winning the 2008-09 CCAA women’s singles title, Huang won the 2009 US Open doubles title. She is very well liked by her teammates & has a wonderful sense of humour. Huang has worked very hard the past few months to improve her game – on court & in the gym.

This past weekend Huang was dominant in the Women’s Singles & Mixed Doubles competition. She partnered with Alvin Lau and easily won the Mixed Doubles event without dropping a game. She also continued her 2 year unbeaten streak by winning the Women’s Singles event – again without dropping a game. She would finish the weekend a perfect 11-0 in both events & has now won all 6 individual events she has entered this season & compiled an amazing 33-0 W-L record in the 1st 3 tournaments. With her strong contribution the Douglas Royals badminton team are the league leaders after 3 tournaments.

Next up is the BCCAA Provincial Championships set for Vancouver Island University, February 20 – 21, 2010.

Old Spaghetti Factory Player of the Week

Alvin Lau
photo by Jerald Walliser

Alvin Lau a 5th year Sports Science student is a key member of the Douglas College badminton program. Lau was the 2008-09 CCAA Badminton Male Athlete of the Year as well as the Douglas College Male Athlete of the Year. In addition to winning the 2008-09 CCAA Men’s Doubles title (his 4th CCAA National Title), Lau has won the Toronto Open and Saskatoon Open tournaments. He is very well liked by his teammates & is one of the team leaders working very hard the past few months to improve his game – on court & in the gym.

This past weekend Lau continued his fine season. With partner RuiLin Huang, Lau easily won the Mixed Doubles event without dropping a game. He also finished 2nd in the Men’s Doubles event losing a close match in the final, which happened to be his 1st loss this season to go with 31 wins! In all he finished the weekend with a 10-1 record and has now won 5 of 6 individual events he has entered this season. With his strong contribution the Douglas Royals badminton team are the league leaders after 3 tournaments.

Next up is the BCCAA Provincial Championships set for Vancouver Island University, February 20 – 21, 2010.

Shawn Zhang wins BCCAA Badminton Player of the Week

Shawn Zhang
photo by Jerald Walliser

Zhang is an integral part of the Douglas Royals badminton team. Zhang is primarily a singles player has also established himself as a very good doubles player. He works very hard in practice & is highly motivated to become one of the best players in Canada. Recently he won the Jack Underhill, a provincially ranked tournament and also reached the 3rd round of the US Open.

This past weekend Zhang continued his unbeaten season in the Men’s singles event by winning his 2nd straight tournament and running his singles winning streak to an impressive 12-0. For the 2nd time this season, Zhang defeated teammate and former national champion Richard Liang in the singles final. He finished off the weekend by partnering with Alvin Lau and winning a thrilling 3 game men’s doubles final. Zhang finished the weekend a perfect 11-0! The result gives Zhang 3 individual ‘A-Flight’ titles already this season.

Melody Liang wins BCCAA Badminton Player of the Week

Melody Liang
photo by Jerald Walliser

Liang, a 4th year Hospitality student is a key member of the Douglas College badminton program. Liang was the 2007-08 CCAA Badminton Female Athlete of the Year & the Douglas College 2007-08 Female Athlete of the Year. In 2008-09 Liang won the CCAA women’s doubles title, the U23 National doubles & mixed titles at the Montreal International tournament. Liang, has worked very hard the past few months to improve her game – on court & in the gym. She is also a 3 time CCAA National Champion.

This past weekend Liang was her dominant self in the Women’s doubles & Mixed doubles competition. With partner Lynn Huang, Liang easily won the Women’s Doubles event without dropping a game. She also partnered with Alvin Lau to win the Mixed doubles event – again without dropping a game. She finished the weekend a perfect 11- 0 in both events & has now won 3 ‘A-Flight’ individual events she has entered this season & compiled an amazing 21-1 W-L record in the 1st 2 tournaments with her only loss coming to a Douglas College teammate. With her strong contribution, the Douglas Royals badminton team are the league leaders after two tournaments.

Badminton team continues League Domination

Shawn Zhang
photo by Jerald Walliser

The Douglas Royals Badminton team won the 2nd tournament of the season hosted this past weekend at TRU College in Kamloops. The Royals squad started the weekend by winning the team competition with a perfect 5-0 record. Douglas completed the impressive Saturday with a dominating performance on Sunday. The team came out firing on all cylinders and won 4 of 5 individual events. The highlight was Alvin Lau & Shawn Zhang winning a thrilling match against a powerful Capilano College doubles team. Alvin and Shawn joined Melody Liang to win 2 events each.

The team now breaks from league play for Christmas before hosting the 3rd tournament of the season in early January. The Royals will be looking to wrap up a 5th straight BCCAA provincial title before preparations begin for the nationals qualifier.

• Results
• Men’s Singles: Shawn Zhang – 1st, Richard Liang – 2nd
• Men’s Doubles: Shawn Zhang/Alvin Lau – 1st
• Women’s Doubles: Lynn Huang/Melody Liang – 1st
• Mixed Doubles: Alvin Lau/Melody Liang – 1st

Alvin Lau wins BCCAA Badminton Player of the Week

Alvin Lau
photo by Jerald Walliser

Lau, a 5th year Sports Science student won the 2008 CCAA Athlete of the Year Award – Across ALL sports. He also was selected to represent Canada at the Thomas Cup in Jakarta, Indonesia & won the Douglas College Male Athlete of the Year award the past 2 years. At the recent US Open Alvin along with his partner reached the Mixed Doubles final. Despite all his success the past few years, Alvin is a very level headed, down to earth individual who is always looking for ways to improve the team. He is also one of the hardest workers on the badminton court.

This past weekend Lau quietly led Douglas College to the team title along with winning both the Men’s & Mixed doubles events. Lau went through the weekend with a 10-1 record. He won the Men’s doubles with newcomer Darren Hong & the Mixed doubles with Ruilin Huang. With his fine play the Douglas Royals badminton team are early league leaders as they try to win their 5th straight provincial title with Lau looking to win a record 5 national titles this season.

Stephanie Ko wins BCCAA Badminton Player of the Week

Stephanie Ko
photo by Jerald Walliser

Stephanie, a 3rd year Sports Science student is a key member of the Douglas College badminton program. Stephanie has had a fantastic few months. After reaching the finals of the Women’s Doubles at the Montreal International she along with her partner Melody Liang won the Alberta Open – a national ranking event, is also a two time CCAA National Champion and won the prestigious Premiers Award last year. She is very well liked by her teammates & has a wonderful sense of humour.

Ko has worked very hard the past few months to improve her game – on court & in the weight room. This past weekend Stephanie dominated in the Women’s doubles & Women’s Singles competition. Ko & partner Ruilin Huang easily won the Women’s Doubles event going undefeated. She also won the Women’s Singles event. In both games, Ko won without dropping a single game. She finished the weekend a perfect 11-0 in both events. With her strong contribution the Douglas Royals badminton team lead the BCCAA conference after the 1st tournament.