There was a small ceremony in the secluded courtyard of the Badminton and Racquet Club Wednesday beside the ruins of the burned out social and sports facility. It sits secretly; a few paces from the roaring corner of St.Clair Ave. and Yonge St. Members were there with officials from Toronto Fire and Toronto EMS to thank them for their heroic efforts on February 14, 2017. That’s the day a suspected kitchen fire burned the permanent building to wreckage. A badminton dome stands and has been operating pretty much continuously. “There was a period where we didn’t know that everybody got out OK. And Toronto Fire Services again went into the burning building… and they made sure that everybody did get out,” COO of the Badminton and Racquet Club Paul Cadieux said at the ceremony. No one was reported seriously injured during the conflagration. Some staff members were able to save artifacts before evacuating the building, such as a sign dating back to the opening of the club in 1924, as seen in the video capture from Global News above. “Everybody sort of grabbed whatever they could on the way out the door and when we knew it was bad, we pulled out what we could,” Cadieux said. The club hopes to rebuild. Venerable “B and R” hit by fire, Yonge and St Clair closed
