Crossing the Border: College Table Tennis Regionals in Canada
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This weekend at the My Table Tennis club in the Canadian city of Toronto the 2018 NCTTA Great Lakes Regional Championships will take place. This annual event which “ping pongs” back and forth between the USA and Canada (last year taking place in Akron, Ohio) is a who’s who of College Table Tennis greats in the region. The NCTTA Great Lakes region maintains a vast geographical boundary including both the United States and Canada with parts of Upstate NY, Michigan, Ohio and Canadian Provinces of Ontario and Quebec. NCTTA has had a long friendship and history with Canadian College Table Tennis where Canadian teams played alongside their US counterparts since NCTTA’s inception in the 1990’s.
Great Lakes Regional Director, Keith Lam says, “The host city for Great Lakes have been on a rotation between Toronto and Akron - to balance out the travel between USA/CAN players. This year it will be in Toronto.”
These American and Canadian student athletes will be vying for titles in men’s/women’s singles and men’s/coed and women’s teams. 12 men’s/coed Teams and up to 8 women’s teams will compete for the title as well as the chance to qualify for the 2018 iSET College Table Tennis Championships April 20-22nd in Round Rock, Texas. Singles play will also be important as the best players from 7 divisions in both the USA and Canada fight for the right to be the best. Up to 24 men’s singles and as many as 12 women’s singles will participate.
College Table Tennis National Championship qualification is on the line for every event. In the men’s/coed teams perennial favorites, University of Michigan look over their proverbial shoulders at the likes of SUNY Binghamton featuring USA star Kai Zhang among others. On the Canadian side Toronto, McGill, Ottawa, Western Ontario and Universite du Montreal are very dangerous! University of Ottawa features Filip Ilijevski, who has been one of the top stars in Canadian Table Tennis, and is currently earning his bachelors at the University of Ottawa in Biomedical Sciences. Not to be outdone, McGill University features not only a table tennis starlet in Canadian Women’s Table Tennis circles but a poet if you will! Carr-Harris is an accomplished writer, look her up on Amazon!
Don’t count out the singles competition! In women’s singles look for University of Toronto’s top player Nadiya Beyeva to lead the competition. On the men’s side, Kai Zhang is heads and shoulders above everyone in the draw. Zhang is a Westchester Table Tennis club product and has been called a master and prodigy in the USA Table Tennis world.
Great Lakes Regionals will be live streamed from Canada! Tune in to see how they and others do as we love to see great competitors rise to the occasion!
2018 NCTTA Great Lakes Regional Championship - Teams (Day 1)
Saturday, March 10 - 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM Eastern time
https://www.youtube.com/embed/nj0cAFPi5CY
2018 NCTTA Great Lakes Regional Championship - Singles (Day 2)
Sunday, March 11 - 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Eastern time
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ifCc6zNawJ8
Picture by Yujing Cen