With athletes competing – from 13U all the way up to 18U, the East Kootenay Volleyball club had a banner year in their 2013 club season. In fact, they won 2 provincial banners, medaled in many of the premier and provincial events with the indoor season that concluded Nationals tournament a week ago.
At the Nationals the 16U girls and 16U boys team came home with medals. With over 200 athletes and coaches, the club has grown to record size with 18 teams - including satellite teams existing in Invermere, Sparwood and Creston.
The club is fortunate to have mentor coach Steve Kamps, head coach of the COTR mens volleyball team work with the club coaches to help improve their coaching skills.
The club philosophy is to develop coaches through certification and professional development.
This year Steve Kamps, Herb Tepper and Andrew Zurrin will attend Art of Coaching Volleyball conference in Calgary to bring back more information to the club coaches. The conference includes internationally renowned coaches such as USA Olympic Coach Hugh McCutcheon who coached the USA Men’s and Women’s Volleyball Team.
The EKVC teams compete in the Alberta Volleyball Association because the distance to travel to tournaments is shorter than competing in BC.
The club gets the best of both worlds by being able to compete in Alberta – yet BC allows us in their provincial events and tournaments. Last year, EKVC Ben Smith made Team BC and will move onto the College of the Rockies Avalanche team.
The 2nd annual Rich Wayling Memorial home tournament proved to be a big success bringing teams from as far away as Edmonton and Kelowna.
The 15U Red team finished 3rd while the 16U Red team finished 2nd in the tournament. The tournament also allows for excellent development of our local officials.
Senior officials John Kendal and Ken Takahashi have put on 5 officiating courses over this past two years that certified 20 Local officials and six Provincial officials.
A highlight of the year is 18U athlete Shacarra Orr being named to the Canadian Sit Volleyball National team.
Shacarra will travel to Oklahoma in October to represent Canada and the Board of Directors and fellow teammates are proud of her accomplishment.
The club was founded in 1997 with one boys team and the intent of creating a feeder system for the COTR Avalanche program. Since those early beginnings, the girls teams have multiplied with 2 teams at the 13U and 15U age and 3 teams at the 14U and 16U age.
While soccer is the number one participant sport played in the world, not many people know that volleyball is number two. Finding indoor practice time for all the teams can be challenging. The club is grateful for the gym time allotted at the schools and the college.
As the indoor season winds down, the club transitions from indoor volleyball to beach volleyball.
Many of the athletes use beach volleyball to improve their indoor game. Movement and jumping are greatly improved by playing volleyball in the sand. Some of the club athletes are beginning their training for BC Games Beach Volleyball in 2014.