Club History

 

One of the oldest fencing clubs in the city, Metro Blades Fencing Club was established in 1987 when three people met and found they had one thing in common: a passion for fencing!

Matthew Chan, a two-time Olympian (Munich 1972, Montreal 1976) from Hong Kong, Roy Shen and Wally Yeung formed a great kinship and decided to open a fencing club in Toronto.

Early club members A photograph of some of the original Metro Blades members taken in 2000. (front left-right) Inglin Li, Harold Chung, Roy Shen. (back) Wally Yeung

Thus began the life of Metro Blades Fencing Club, so named by Matthew Chan. It became the first community-based foil club in Toronto. To further the club and the sport of fencing in general, Matthew, Wally and Roy were involved in Continuing Education programs for the City of Toronto, North York and York regions, as well as running programs at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora. These programs helped to introduce fencing to the border communities of the Greater Metropolitan area.

Wally and Roy have since returned to Hong Kong, but Metro Blades continued to flourish under the leadership of a number of presidents, including Joseph Cheng, Robert Indrigo, Sascha Brock and currently Lucie Hamelin. We take pride in continuing our founders’ traditions with our ties to the community.  Metro Blades remains a non-profit fencing club. Our goal is to be an inclusive and affordable club, where we teach the sport of fencing to recreational and competitive fencers alike.