The University of Toronto Varsity Blues badminton team won national gold on Saturday (Mar. 15) morning defeating the Waterloo Warriors in a thrilling championship final at the 2025 YONEX Canadian University College Championships.

Hosted by Badminton Canada at Université Laval, the national championship featured 15 of the best teams from across the country in a two-day showcase. After a perfect 3-0 round-robin performance, earning victories over Montreal, TMU, and UQAM, Toronto earned a bye to the semifinals where they defeated Western, putting themselves back in the national gold medal match for a second year in a row. As for their championship final opponents, the Waterloo Warriors also went 3-0 during round-robin matches with wins over Western, UQTR, and Sherbrooke. Requiring a longer path though, they then had to defeat Montreal in a quarter-final showdown before knocking off Laval in the semifinals.

Setting up a rematch of the 2024 edition of the national championship final, the Blues and Warriors did not disappoint as the rematch delivered excitement. With U of T looking to better their silver medal finish from a year ago, they received a 21-7, 21-15 women's singles win from Chloe Choi and a 21-12, 21-11 men's doubles victory from the pair of Nathan Mills and Harold Tan. However, the Warriors answered back with a decisive men's singles win and a three-game mixed doubles victory, drawing the team match to a 2-2 deadlock.

Coming down to the women's doubles match, the U of T duo of Jackie Dent and Jocelyne Jaw captured the first game of the best-of-three series 21-10, but dropped the second 21-17, setting up an epic conclusion to the team championship. The back-and-forth finale came to a close with Dent and Jaw securing the win via a 21-17 final score, sealing the deal on a provincial and national sweep of gold for the Blues this season.

With the conclusion of the team portion of the championships, action now shifts to finding individual event champions. Athletes will represent both their schools and their respective clubs as individual titles will be awarded in the various categories (singles, doubles, mixed doubles) with medal matches scheduled for Sunday (Mar. 16) morning.