CANMORE – In what's already been a historic season for the Rocky Mountain Volleyball Club (RMVC) is about to get a little more memorable.
For the first time ever, not one but two local volleyball teams are heading to national competitions this month, marking a significant moment in time for the Canmore-based club showing that immense talent can come from a small town.
RMVC's U14 girls are off to nationals in Richmond, B.C. from May 10-12, while the U15 girls are headed north to Edmonton from May 16-18 for the nationwide competition.
“It’s a huge deal for the club,” said U15 head coach Chad Hollett. “We’re very excited because this is the first year that we’ve decided to go a full competitive route.”
The competitive programming at RMVC was cranked up this season to be comparable with city clubs. The increase in play included about 10 hours a week of training and adding a personal trainer into the mix. The results are speaking volumes about the switch in mindset and exceeding expectations in the process.
The U15 team, in particular, has been in four championship matches out of six tournaments this season and they recently won gold in an Alberta Premier tournament for the first time in club history. They are off to provincials this weekend to determine their seeding for nationals.
“We are doing everything to bring us to the next level, so nationals is kind of the icing on our cake,” said Hollett. “Our girls get to go and play against the best teams in the country and really enjoy themselves and have a fun week, which they deserved after all the hard work they put in.”
At this point, Hollett was unable to pick a team MVP, saying the U15 girls’ as a unit have been giving other teams problems all season.
“We’ve had so many girls step up in so many situations,” he said. “The girls are the first RMVC to ever win gold at a Premier.”
It’s not often that smaller communities rival bigger city clubs, but that just shows the skill level to be able to mix it up, said RMVC president Darren Anderson, who said it’s "pretty huge to win a whole Premier."
“It’s always the big city clubs have lots to pull from in terms of their talent pool and so it’s often Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge and Red Deer that are at the top levels of all this so it’s nice to see our teams just knocking on the door of that and breaking through a bit,” said Anderson.
On top of shining through on the court, one of the major takeaways for the team is their sportsmanship with other teams and close friendship with each other.
“They’re just super happy and super excited to be playing volleyball,” said Anderson.
Club looking for volleyball-minded coaches, volunteers
Next season, RMVC is expecting its biggest growth yet, with five competitive girls’ teams and one boys’ team as well as a rec league and spring league.
Due to the large volume of athletes filling out teams, the local volleyball club is seeking additional coaches and volunteers.
“We need people in the volleyball community who have a little experience that want to help coach as head coach, assistant coach or want to help run camps here and there,” said Anderson. “We’re just looking for more people in the volleyball community to come forward and help support and grow with the club.”
For more information, email [email protected].
