Profile Of Club Atwater’s Revival In Montreal
by Rob Dinerman
December 26, 2002 -The
$ 20,000 Morgenstern Cup competition held in mid-December this year
provided another advance to the ISDA professional doubles squash tour,
which added another successful site to its expanding 2002-2003 schedule
and brought professional squash back to the beautiful city of Montreal
for the first time since the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association
(MAAA) on downtown Peel Street held its last WPSA hardball tournament
in 1991. More importantly, the three-day event became a celebration and
affirmation of the spectacular improvements that a Can. $7 million
investment has wrought upon Club Atwater, the host club, which is now
fairly bursting with vitality and well-deserved pride over the success
of the transformation it has undergone during the past eight months.
Founded in 1926 on land bought from the Gentlemen Ecclesiastics of the
Seminary of St. Sulpice (to whom Louis XIV of France had awarded
seigneurial rights to the whole island of Montreal in 1663), and known
for almost all of its glorious history as the Montreal Badminton &
Squash Club (MB&SC), this venerable institution was purchased and
re-named last spring by Leonard Schlemm Jr., a lifelong member and the
co-founder and former chairman of Fitness Holdings Worldwide, the
largest operator of fitness centers in the world, with U. S. $ 1
billion in annual revenue.
Mr. Schlemm’s father, a member since 1929, was an accomplished
racquets man, winner of multiple national titles in both badminton and
squash and the holder (co-holder actually, since all of his squash
titles came in doubles competition) of four of the 84 (!) national or
international squash championships (and of one of the 33 such badminton
titles) that have been won over the years by MB&SC members.
Included in
this number are two-time U. S. National Men’s champions Colin
Adair (’68 and ’71) and Michael Desaulniers (’78 and
’80), later the top-ranked WPSA player and winner of the
’81 WPSA Championship and ’82 North American Open, and
three-time Canadian National champion John Smith-Chapman, considered
one of the greatest Canadian players in history, in whose honor a
prestigious annual invitational doubles tournament, affectionately
known as “The Smitty”, has been held ever since he
collapsed and died in the locker room immediately after a singles game
in 1987 at the premature age of just 49.
It was the latter who made the tongue-in-cheek comment that symbolized
the dominance the MB&SC torch-bearers were enjoying over the entire
North American amateur squash scene during the late 1960’s. This
phenomenon was solidly signaled by the U. S. Five-Man Team championship
won by an all-MB&SC entry (the first time a victorious entrant in
this decades-old competition consisted entirely of members of a single
club) that wasn’t even allowed to use its two best players, since
Adair and Smith-Chapman were both playing in the concomitant individual
championship that weekend! (When those five were later joined by Adair
and Smith-Chapman in the 32-team Centennial Tournament, the rest of the
field wasn’t even close.)
But an even better example occurred at the USSRA National Singles in
Boston the following year, whose semi-final slots were filled by Sam
Howe and three MB&SC members. After Adair had defeated Howe in the
first semi, thereby guaranteeing that two MB&SC members would meet
in the final, the tournament chairman spotted the three club mates
sitting together in the locker room and approached the trio to offer
congratulations, only to be greeted by Smith-Chapman, who deadpanned,
“We’ve had enough for now. We’ll finish the
tournament next week at our own club.” He was only joking, of
course, and Peter Martin went on to defeat Smith-Chapman in the other
semi-final before losing to Adair in the title match.
Smith Chapman himself was a college graduate of Sir George Williams,
but one of the most salient aspects of the club’s history has
been the depth of its relationship with McGill University, which is
located less than a mile away. The genesis of this bond traces its
roots to World War II, during which 174 of the club’s 500 or so
senior members joined the armed services. In response to the consequent
substantial downturn in club usage, the Board made an arrangement
through which McGill students were allowed to obtain temporary
memberships. Although this agreement ceased at war’s end, a
strong connection had by then been established, to the point where many
members even today are McGill alumni, and when a major squash or
badminton tournament overflows the Club Atwater facilities, the
qualifying rounds are often played on the courts at this highly
respected university, whose graduating athletes have joined this club
with such regularity that they are even affectionately referred to as
its “talent pool.”
Inside the Newly Renovated Club Atwater
The MB&SC had become so popular during the mid-60’s period
when Smith Chapman, Adair et al. were in their primes that the officers
were actually forced to close it to new applicants and put a moratorium
on the waiting list to combat the overcrowding that was starting to
occur; this mirrored the situation in Montreal as a whole, which at
that time had become the most overcrowded city in Canada, a center of
vigor and promise and the magnet for thousands determined to prove
themselves the country’s best and brightest. But political
developments, especially Quebec’s several highly charged and
divisive referendums and the anglophone flight they have engendered,
have had a major and ongoing impact on all aspects of life in this
beautiful city; by this past spring membership had declined from a high
of 2500 to 660, an erosion that resulted in increasing dues and
assessments which still did not supply enough capital to address the
growing number of areas of a three-quarter-century-old clubhouse that
were in need of upgrading and/or repair.
The history of private clubs that for a variety of reasons have gone
under in recent years in North America makes for uneasy telling and
even includes a 2001-2002 ISDA stop, namely the City Athletic Club in
midtown Manhattan, which contained one of the best squash doubles
courts anywhere but which last summer was forced to cease operations a
full 94 years after its opening in 1908. The MB&SC never even
approached that level of decline or danger, but a palpable level of
concern was beginning to develop until Mr. Schlemm stepped forward last
spring and made his extraordinary financial commitment to an
institution that had played so major a role in his family’s life
for more than seven decades. Included in his proposal was a vow that
the dues would actually be cut by 20% and remain at this level for a
minimum of five years, that there would be no assessments and that he
would cap the club membership in order to ensure that each member had
reasonable access to the club’s facilities.
Club Atwater's public spaces
As importantly, Mr. Schlemm promised that for all the massive and
necessary renovations he was planning, the clubhouse, located in the
residential Borough of Westmount in the center of Montreal (just up
from the old Forum where the Canadiens won their 23 Stanley Cups),
would retain its charm and essential character as a family-oriented
social and racquets club. That he was able to accomplish this delicate
balancing act even during a hectic eight-month renovation period
throughout which between 75 and 90 workers per day were in active
operation is a remarkable story of planning, foresight and execution.
The improvements are virtually everywhere, from the easy access via a
wide hallway to the doubles gallery (which previously had required a
difficult ascent of a narrow and winding set of stairs, which led to
countless “traffic jams” between those trying to enter the
gallery and those leaving it), to the individual mahogany changing
stalls in the locker room, to the new and outstanding artwork that
adorns the walls all over the club, even in the locker room. A further
highlight is the new private dining room surrounded by a second-story
glassed-in 5,000-bottle wine cellar stocked with an impressive
selection ranging from first-growth vineyards in Bordeaux to
hard-to-find California cabernets.
The pair of adjacent doubles courts, deemed by many the crown jewel of
Club Atwater’s racquets rebirth, and as mentioned the arenas in
which the Morgenstern Cup (won by the top-ranked ISDA pairing of Gary
Waite and Damien Mudge) was contested, were themselves the focus of a
great part of the refurbishment. The installation of glass back walls
has resulted in the creation of court-level viewing where none had
previously existed, while the existing gallery area from above (with a
capacity of over 100 spectators for each court) has been painted and
spruced up. The front wall of each court has been meticulously
reinforced, with an obviously salutary effect on the trueness of the
bounces, and the addition of a sophisticated ventilation system means
that the courts can be maintained at a desirable temperature regardless
of the weather conditions, an important consideration given
Montreal’s winters.
The end result is a wonderful environment both for playing and watching
the game. Photographs of the multitude of distinguished club members
and supportive biographical data on their accomplishments, festoons the
mahogany walls of the main hallways. So do meticulous and up-to-date
rosters of the club’s many national, international and club
championships in all of its many racquet sports, which include not only
squash but also badminton (whose main arena on the second floor
contains five adjacent courts, on which an exhibition match between the
national teams of Taiwan, the world champion in this game, and Canada
recently occurred), tennis and platform tennis.
Club Atwater also contains a three-level weight and fitness area with
all of the most sophisticated equipment and an aerobics room with a
host of personal trainers and instructors. The existence of a mobile
tennis-court carpet that is rolled over the badminton courts seems to
symbolize the resourcefulness and foresight that has so maximized the
building’s 60,000 square feet of available space. There are two
full-time badminton professionals and a whole team of squash pros, all
of whom are ranked on the ISDA tour, consisting of Viktor Berg, the
Club Atwater’s official touring pro, who is also ranked in the
top 50 of the PSA softball circuit and recently led Canada to the Pan
American Federation Cup gold medal, Josh McDonald, Berg’s doubles
partner (in a pairing whose debut performance in late September
resulted in an advance all the way to the final of the Monticello Open
in Denver) and the assistant pro, and head squash and tennis pro Ken
Flynn, a native of Ireland, which he represented 87 times in
international team competition while earning a world singles ranking as
high as No. 52 before assuming this position eight years ago.
Flynn’s predecessor Kevin Parker served for a full
quarter-century in that role after leaving his native Australia (where
he frequently used to go on barnstorming squash tours with Hashim Khan)
on the recommendation of fellow Aussie Ken Binns, who had been the
MB&SC squash pro during the late 1960’s. Now 73 and embracing
a kind of emeritus status, Parker is still a frequent and extremely
popular presence at the club, and his photo and list of career
achievements (which include four consecutive British Open veterans
titles in the late 1970’s, during which period he also defeated
Khan to win the WPSA Veterans crown, and a slew of Masters
championships in both singles and doubles) is prominently posted just
outside the first-floor main-bar area (just steps away from the
grandfather clock that has greeted visitors ever since being donated by
Dr. Hanford S. McKee, the club’s first President, during the
1927-29 period of his service), where Parker often holds court and
regales appreciative audiences with anecdotes and noteworthy episodes
from his long and praiseworthy tenure.
Another notable Club Atwater artifact in addition to the grandfather
clock resulted from the commandeering of the premises of the Montreal
Winter Club (at the time the most prestigious private sports club in
Montreal) by the Royal Navy in 1939, with World War II looming. At
war’s end six years later, it was decided that the Winter Club
would not reopen, and the famous 1870 portrait by William Notman of a
festive skating scene from the Winter Carnival (held each year at the
Winter Club) was donated to the MB&SC, where it hangs today on the
main stairway leading up to the second floor.
That same stairway also contains a carved wooden plaque commemorating
the club members who were killed during World War II. Photos of these
and many other important items can be found in “The Atwater: An
Informal History of the Montreal Badminton and Squash Club,
1926-1994,” an 100-page archival work chronicling the thematic
history of this clubhouse by Gavin Drummond and his father, Derek,
whose two-year, two-generation collaboration is itself a testimony to
the continuity from one era to another than so permeates Club Atwater
and defines its personality.
Ultimately, it is perhaps the sage Parker who best expressed what makes
Club Atwater (which in the wake of its recent renovations is already
well on its way to reaching the 1,000 membership goal Mr. Schlemm
posited) such a unique institution when he admiringly, indeed almost
reverently, paid tribute to its intangible quality in the following
terms: “The club itself is what holds you. The members, the
comradery, the games, the fellowship---it makes you and your family
want to spend as much time here as possible. I really don’t know
of any other place like it.”