On the occasion of the upcoming 2015 Edmonton Open Table Tennis Championships, let’s take a look at 15 Fun Facts about our historic tournament:

1. The very first one took place in 1939.

2. The 2015 Edmonton Open will be the 55th edition.

3. Edmontonian J.C. Burger, owner of a lumber company and table tennis enthusiast sponsored the first Edmonton Open and provided the trophy. It is the J.C. Burger Trophy (pictured above).

4. The first champion was W.A. McGillivray. Back in those days, table tennis was played with hardbats.

5. The most recent champion (2014) was Johnny Zhan of Edmonton. He defeated George Gao of Calgary to take the Open Singles title. The 2014 Edmonton Open took place on the 75th anniversary year of the Edmonton Table Tennis Club (1939-2014).

6. Hong Mar won the Edmonton Open Championships a record 11 times in three different decades (50’s, 60’s and 70’s). He was a table tennis legend in Alberta.

7. The highest ever world table tennis ranking attained by a past champion of the Edmonton Open was #75 by Youngjun Duan. Duan was Team Canada’s head coach for the men’s table tennis team at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

8. Last year’s Edmonton Open attracted 108 players from all over Alberta and Saskatchewan. Players hailed from Edmonton, Sherwood Park, St. Albert, Calgary, Lethbridge, Diamond City, Coaldale, Edson, Grande Prairie and Saskatoon

9. The Edmonton Open is run entirely by volunteers from the Edmonton Table Tennis Club (ETTC). From 1939 until the 1950’s, our predecessor, the Edmonton Table Tennis Association (ETTA) ran the tournament.

10. Saul Glin won the Open Singles title at the 1951 Edmonton Open. Glin was a holocaust survivor, escaping the horrors of the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps. He immigrated to Canada in 1948 and settled in Calgary. He passed away in 2014.

11. Ioulia Degtiar is the only woman ever to win the Open Singles title (2005). Degtiar is currently ranked #10 in Canada and #2 in Alberta.

12. Four members of Edmonton Table Tennis Club are past champions. They are Kam Kong (’75, ’77, ’95), Keith Wong (’73, ’76, ’80), Richard Mah (’86, ’92) & Johnny Zhan (’14).

13. The 2014 Edmonton Open was covered by Global News on Sunday, September 7

14. Our officiating crew consists of referees and umpires at every level (Provincial, National & International).

15. Our tournament is contested in the competition gymnasium of the Saville Community Sports Centre. The Saville Centre is a world class athletics facility managed by the University of Alberta and has hosted international sporting events for basketball, volleyball and curling.

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The 2015 Edmonton Open Table Tennis Championships takes place September 5th and 6th at the University of Alberta’s Saville Community Sports Centre. The Edmonton Open is an annual tournament organized to Table Tennis Canada’s (TTCAN) 3-star standard and is hosted and run entirely by volunteers of the Edmonton Table Tennis Club (ETTC). You can register for the tournament at our website or visit this link.