GREAT FALLS — Never in the 40-year history of the Big Sky State Games had badminton taken place in Great Falls, but that was until this past Saturday and Sunday when the tournament was held at the Montana School for the Deaf and Blind.
"It takes a lot of effort to organize this event," commissioner and Great Falls Badminton Club representative Richard Lai said Saturday. "Including negotiation, including really moving the venue to Great Falls, finding the right place for the game."
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"It is pretty cool for one, you know we get to share our love of badminton and so everybody's kind of taking turns trying to host it," Great Falls Badminton Club representative Vim Herrera said. "If we make it big enough then maybe we'll do it here every year."
Lai and Herrera both run the Great Falls Badminton Club and competed in the two-day event over the weekend.
Lai is also the statewide commissioner, and he said that there's a lot of growing interest in badminton across Montana.
"There is a small group in Billings, and we are always in contact with them, and hoping that we can move the players up to Great Falls or up to Bozeman (where the event has been previously held at as well)," Lai said. "Same thing for Bozeman as well, they do have another badminton club there which is very active, and we're trying to bring them over to Great Falls as well."
Lai said that Herrera has been a big help in running Great Falls' club, as well as bringing the event to the Electric City. It took a lot of coordination to do so though, Herrera said.
"A lot of people trying to be involved, and my whole group is involved," Herrera said. "We're hoping that if we do this again next time that there's going to be a lot of sponsors around town."
There was a wide variety of ages competing over the weekend Herrera said.
"The youngest that we have is in their 20s, I think 23, 24, all the way in their 70s," Herrera said. "There's no discrimination, you know how to play, it's just different brackets."
All of the different age groups is due to the fact that people like Lai and Herrera have done their best reaching out and inviting people to play, they both said.
"It's a really exciting sport, a lot of people play badminton in the backyard," Lai said. "We are bringing the backyard sports right in to the indoor sport facility, and we put a lot of competitiveness in to it. So it can be a leisure sport at home, but more competitive and rigorous here."
"We try to make it friendly," Herrera said. "Of course we want tow in, but (at) the end of the day we want more collaboration and just having fun."
