GEORGIAN SET TO HOST OCAA BADMINTON CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Athletic Centre on the Barrie Campus of Georgian College is ready to welcome the top 48 student-athletes to this year's Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA) Badminton Championships presented by belairdirect which take place Feb. 17-18.

Three-time OCAA medalist Owen Kurvits from Redeemer University College will be looking for a gold medal once again in men's singles after winning a silver medal last year. He previously won the OCAA gold medal in 2014 and 2015 and was the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) National champion in 2015 and won silver last year.

Humber College's Olivia Lei is the reigning two-time OCAA and CCAA gold medalist the last two years while Humber also has the defending OCAA and CCAA gold medalist men's doubles team of Adam Dong and Ryan Chow competing once again.

The Georgian Grizzlies have four student-athletes competing at the Championship with the men's doubles team of Ethan Zhao and Eric Kern and the mixed doubles team of Tammy Do and Philip Bruce.

Play begins on Friday at noon with the first four rounds of the round robin in each discipline: men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed doubles. The competition continues Saturday morning at 9 a.m. with the final round robin round, followed by the medal round which is scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m.

As well Black Knight Canada will be on site during the event with a product demo. The general public is invited to attend the Championships at no cost.

For those not able to attend the Championships, the event will be livestreamed on youtube.com/GeorgianGrizzlies.

The gold and silver medal winners from each discipline will earn a spot in the CCAA Badminton National Championship which takes place Mar. 8-11 hosted by Seneca College in Toronto, ON.