Saturday, August 14, 2004

Badminton, Costas called it a CULT Sport

Ruffle Feathers, Play Badminton, Support Rauterkus

We are going to see plenty of badminton in the Olympics, said NBC's Bob Costas as the opening parade of athletes was being conducted. Great!

But Bob also said that badminton was a "cult sport." Hold the phone. Badminton is great. It is great in the backyard, and, it is great as a real sport too.

When we went to China, we got into badminton, big time. At our 4th of July party we set up five courts in our local park. At our family vacation / reunion, we set up a court and wore out the grass with four continual days of play.

If you want to play some badminton, post your comments below. We'll be playing again real soon.

Furthermore, he mentioned badminton and tied it to another CULT sport, the winter sport of CURLING. Hey, he is hitting too close to home. I love curling too. I was slightly involved in the formation of the young Pittsburgh Curling Club. It meets throughout the winter months and is a lot of fun. I have pitched the idea of turning the now closed, indoor ice rink on the South Side, located behind South Side Hospital, as a curling center.

Humm. Why not make the closed ice rink a curling center in the winter and a home for power badminton in the summer.

This reminds me. I did offer to help coordinate the badminton competition for the 2005 Senior Games to come to Pittsburgh. The badminton and volleyball will be played at Pitt's Cost Center. A sponsorship of Sports Court has been established to get the flooring. It would be great to get that flooring into the now closed ice rink, before and after the event.

Ruffle feathers. Play badminton.


In case you missed it: Call me a snob or enthusiast, but what was that word within the NBC News Coverage from Aug. 15, 2004 about badminton?

4 comments:

Thomas Leturgey said...

Bring out the Shuttlecock; we'll play!

Mark Rauterkus said...

What is up with this smack from the folks at Blogger talking about when they post a story about no curling blog. There might not be a devoted blog -- yet -- about curling, but we're talking about it.

Mark Rauterkus said...

Gamma Sports - a Pittsburgh firm - has now been contacted so as to talk about badminton. I've got a plan. We'll see if Chuck Vietmeier, product line manager, calls me back and meets. More as it unfolds.

Anonymous said...

I'm dying to play badminton to improve amateur skills. What's the age discretion?