By Joel Weiner
When you travel and clear immigration, are you asked for your visa or handed a pen? If you happen to be Lowertown’s Dominic Soong, you may get the pen to sign autographs for admiring border agents. That’s because, in the international world of competitive badminton, Dominic is famous: a former world ranked #2 in men’s doubles.
Born in Malaysia, Dominic began playing badminton at the age of 6 with a racket purchased for the princely sum of $1from a charity shop. His family was not well off, so his version of a court was newspapers hanging from a string strung across the back yard.
Fortunately, school provided him the opportunity to develop and display his talent at the game. Dom was a star on his elementary and high school teams and was just 16 when he represented Malaysia and won the Asian school boys’ championship in Manila.
After graduation, he was selected to go to Kuala Lampur to train full time with the national team on the international circuit. This culminated with a second-place finish in the men’s doubles at the 1976 Thomas Cup (equivalent to the World Cup for soccer).
In 1978, Dom was lured to Canada by an invitation to coach at a prestigious private club, the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association . A year later, he placed first in the men’s doubles at the Canada Individual Championships.
Following the exodus of English corporate offices from Quebec in the 1970’s, the MAAA began to flounder and Dom was finding his lack of French fluency a liability. On the advice of a friend, he moved to Ottawa where he supported himself by doing freelance coaching and working in a sports shop. Soon, his services were in such demand that he was travelling across the country to assist provincial teams.
But it was in Ottawa that Dom met Janet, his wife to be. A Bell Canada employee who moved to Canada’s capital from Toronto, she had played badminton since her teens and had several high school and university championships to her credit. They married in 1991
Today, they operate the very successful Soong Badminton Academy. Launched in 1996, its first lessons were conducted in the Immaculata High School gymnasium with a class of just seven students. They have never looked back since.
The academy now serves some 500 “students” ranging in age from 5 to 75 and, in addition to Dom and Janet, employs another 20 certified coaches on an as-needed basis. To meet the demand, instruction is now offered for 10 week terms in fall and winter, 8 weeks in the spring and 10 weeks of summer camps offered in the summer. In addition, the academy fields a team of 48 players (24 girls and 24 boys) which competes in tournaments at the provincial level.
In the 20 years that Dom and Janet have been operating their business, they have had numerous successes. Their teaching and mentoring program has produced coaches for many university teams in the province. Three players coached by Dominic as part of Ontario’s Provincial team (of which he was the head coach for 8 years) competed in the 2004 Olympics in Athens and one subsequently finished 2nd in the Swiss Open.
Dom and Janet have seen many changes since the early days of the academy. One of the most prominent is the changing demographics in some of our major cities. More people are emigrating from countries such as China and India, where badminton is a pre-eminent sport like hockey is in Canada. In that realm, Dominic Soong is the equivalent of a Jean Beliveau or George Armstrong and is similarly remembered and revered.
Janet tells the story of a recent visit to Singapore where she passed through customs in a matter of minutes. As a Canadian citizen born in Malaysia, Dom was channeled through a different line. After waiting almost half-an-hour she began to get worried. However a few minutes later he emerged. The border agents recognized the name and diverted the line so that they could get autographs and pictures.
How about that? A superstar right in our neighbourhood.