Written by Denise Martins

Some may see ping-pong as just a simple leisure activity, requiring little athletic ability and little dedication.
But don’t tell that to the members of the Table Tennis Club.
Ping-pong, or table tennis as it is more commonly referred to by competitive players, has been climbing the ladder from leisure to sport over the last three decades. Dennis Shum, a fifth year honours economics student and president of the university’s Table Tennis Club, says that North America is behind on this rising sport, one that has been gaining the world’s attention exponentially.
“In my view, every big university should have at least one table tennis team. University of Toronto, Western, Waterloo, and all the major U.S. schools have a team,” he said.
While there is a table tennis club at the University of Guelph, it’s still in its early stages, and creating a team is an entirely different story.
“It takes a couple of years to actually establish an actual sports team…you need a coach with a lot of experience and there are a lot of forms to sign and you need funding,” Shum said.
In the last several decades, various countries have tried to work on differences through what is called ‘ping pong diplomacy’ which some argue paved the way to interactions between the United States and China during the early 1970s.
Table tennis is arguably most prominent in China, and as the University of Guelph has an exchange program in place for Chinese students, Chum believes the university’s reputation could prosper if a team were to be successfully created.
“The good thing about Guelph is that there is a Chinese exchange program where we bring Chinese grad students to our university and a lot of them are really good… if we had a team it’d be very fortunate to have them to compete and show what the pinnacle of table tennis is.”
Although table tennis was officially introduced as an Olympic sport on 1988, many still fail to see it as a competitive sport. Whether this general notion is an informed decision or due to a lack of knowledge of table tennis history, is a mystery. But Shum strongly believes that this notion has been created due to misinformation and an overall lack of understanding of the sport itself; he has plans to educate the public on table tennis.
“Next fall I plan to expand our marketing campaign through a tournament and advertisements. If more people see what [competitive] table tennis is like with their own eyes, then they’d be more open-minded.”
Both experienced and inexperienced players are welcome in the table tennis club. Joining costs are just five dollars. Training sessions for less experienced players are held on Sundays from 4-6pm in the Athletic Centre. Anyone interested in joining the club, attending a training session, or just getting more information may contact Dennis Shum directly at cshum@uoguelph.ca