The NAIT badminton team will send seven athletes to nationals in Saint John, N.B., after the Ooks won three silvers and a gold medal at the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) championships on Feb 21. and Feb. 22.

Samantha Tran won silver in the women’s singles event, Davis Wong and Mataia Wong won silver in mixed doubles and Jenna Wong and Ella Dolan won silver in women’s doubles. Matthew Wong and Ethan Lee won NAIT’s sole gold in the men’s doubles event.

The Ooks walked away with one gold medal in the four championship matches they competed in, but head coach Alan Chow thinks the team should have won more. During Saturday’s team event, the team lost the semi-finals and the 3-4 seed, ending in fourth place. The team event is based on two men’s singles, two women’s singles, a men’s doubles, a women’s doubles and a mixed — a best of seven format.

The team had to win four matches to advance to semi-finals, then finals.

“So, we were in first place. Our team is very good. We’re a very deep team. But anything could happen in the finals, and that’s pretty much what happened,” Chow says. “Maybe it came to nerves and just the teams or the match ups we were hoping we got, but at the same time we unfortunately didn’t win the games we should have won.”

Chow says that the team had an idea of where they would stack, but playoffs are “a totally different animal.”

“It’s just so much more pressure,” he says. “Maybe you reference the men’s Canada hockey team versus the US, and how much everyone has been saying that we should just win. It just changes the whole mindset.”

The team ended up getting fourth and came together on Saturday to discuss the results and how they were feeling. After the team meeting, the badminton players went into the Sunday individual games stronger.

“This is probably the toughest year as far as competition … so, it was very hard to play. But either way, we all played really well. I was really proud of my team to kind of bounce back from a tough Saturday,” says Chow.

The Ooks will now focus on competing at nationals, where Chow believes some teams have a solid chance of medalling. He said the he men’s doubles and women’s doubles are the most promising — but it all comes down to training and being able to perform under pressure. Who the players are up against can also change everything.

“You can always say that you want to medal, or you want to get gold, but sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know at the beginning,” says Chow. “So what you do is just prepare as best as you can, then from that you kind of just go in with an attitude of just wanting to play well and compete.”

NAIT is headed back to nationals in search of its first gold medal since 2022, when Smit Patel won gold in men’s singles. The Canadian Collegiate Athletics Association (CCAA) Badminton Championships take place from Mar. 5 to Mar. 7.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the Nugget’s March 2026 print issue. Click here to read it.

Feature image via NAIT Ooks