Local Sports
RDC To Host Men’s Volleyball Championship This Weekend
The top eight men’s volleyball teams in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) will soon arrive at RDC to determine this year’s conference champion. The 2016- 2017 ACAC Men’s Volleyball Championship will take place from February 23 to 25 in the Main Gym at Red Deer College.
“This is a great opportunity for people from across central Alberta to see some of the best men’s volleyball competition in the nation,” says Diane St-Denis, RDC Athletic Director. “When we have the opportunity to showcase this type of high-level sport in Red Deer, it’s exciting for fans and it also helps to ignite a passion for volleyball in young players, as well as coaches and officials from across the community.”
St-Denis notes that RDC has an extensive history of hosting ACAC Championships. “This allows us to showcase our teams, but it’s also part of our mandate as a member of the ACAC. Hosting the Men’s Volleyball Championship gives RDC the opportunity to highlight top athletes from across the conference,” she says.
Many of these top athletes will be recognized at the ACAC 2016-17 Men’s Volleyball Award Presentations, which take place on February 22. The awards will be presented to student-athletes from across the conference, based on their performances in the regular season.
And with the tournament set to begin next week, the championship is sure to feature exciting and highly competitive matches as teams look to advance to the National Championship, scheduled for March 8 to 11 at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. “The ACAC consistently produces elite teams that are competitive at the national level,” says St-Denis. “This championship at RDC promises to showcase incredible volleyball, right here in central Alberta.”
2016-17 ACAC Men’s Volleyball Championship schedule:
Award Presentations
- Wednesday, February 22
- Doors open at 9:45 am
- Award Presentations begin at 10 am Mainstage, Red Deer College Arts Centre (see map).
Awards will be presented to:
- Coach of the Year (North and South)
- Player of the Year
- Rookie of the Year (North and South)
- North All-Conference Team
- South All-Conference Team
- Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association’s Nominations
Tournament Schedule (all games take place in RDC Main Gym):
- Thursday, February 23: 1 pm, 3 pm, 6 pm (RDC Kings), 8 pm
- Friday, February 24: 12 pm, 2 pm, 5 pm, 7 pm
- Saturday, February 25: 11 am, 1 pm (bronze medal game), 3:30 pm (gold medal game)
The games can also be viewed here:
https://www.acactv.ca/en/
(Photo by Tony Hansen)
Community
The Raptors (Ridgefield Raptors that is) are coming to Edmonton next summer
At first word that the Raptors will be spending a few days in Edmonton next summer, sports fans might be excused for jumping up and down at the thought of a high-profile NBA event.
But the Raptors under discussion play another game — baseball — and they’re based not in Toronto but in Ridgefield, Wash., a small centre near the Washington-Oregon border which claims fewer than 10,000 residents in its Wikipedia profile. Edmonton — officially labeled the Riverhawks — is now a partner in the West Coast League, which develops college players and has seen several top prospects selected in recent Major League Baseball drafts.
Also joining this week are teams based in Kamloops and Nanaimo, bringing the British Columbia contingent to four teams. Victoria and Kelowna were already members of what now is a 15-team organization.
Teams currently occupy Yakima, Wenatchee, Walla Walla and Port Angeles in Washington, as well as Bend, Corvallis and other communities in Oregon.
The city of Edmonton confirmed months ago that the Edmonton Prospects of the Western Canadian Baseball League would not be returning to Re/Max Field. Several years of association with Pat Cassidy and the Prospects had led to difficult feelings on both sides.
The Prospects are developing a new facility in Stony Plain. It will be ready for competition in 2022. Cassidy has said his team will find another place to play in 2021. All comments on next year and beyond are based, of course, on the progress of local, provincial and national fights against COVID.
Randy Gregg, the former Edmonton Oilers defenceman who led the new group’s campaign to function in Re/Max Field, unveiled his new organization at a well-attended news conference and said several options concerning the WCBL were considered but “there were continuing roadblocks.”
During months of negotiation, Gregg and his supporters did not communicate with the public. Neither did city council. “When you sign a non-disclosure agreement, you have to abide by it. Your signature has to mean something,” he said.
Gregg insisted the Riverhawks organization has no ill feelings about the WCBL. “It might have worked well,” he said. A few casual remarks were made about the potential value to this entire region if both the WCBL and the WCL are profitable.
The Edmonton approach includes sharing in travel costs for existing West Coast League teams. Similar situations made it difficult for a pair of so-called “independent” teams to operate in the years after the Edmonton Trappers were sold and Edmonton had no significant baseball.
Gregg is convinced the new load of travel costs will not be insurmountable. The Riverhawks are a collection of 28 contributors. He also pointed out that at least a couple of Edmonton’s new partners are owned or controlled by owners with major-league connections.’
“We’ve got a big job ahead of us,” he said. “We know that a lot of baseball fans have never seen a game at Re/Max Field.”
As things were unfolding between the Prospects and city officials, there were regular suggestions that no lease would have been granted for the WCBL in 2021. “Can you imagine what it would feel like to have no baseball for maybe three or four years in this great sports city?”
Last week our nation ran into a spree of high-profile miracles
Edmonton
Hockey, basketball and volleyball gone from the U of A’s fall and winter to-do lists
At almost any time in memory, Wednesday’s decision to remove hockey, basketball and volleyball from the University of Alberta’s fall and winter to-do lists would be considered a major surprise.
This year, I suspect fans and athletes should have been at least partially prepared for it. Blame the pandemic. That’s easy.
Explain that sponsorship money has dried up and every available penny must be saved to keep professors employed and students involved. That’s easy, too. Some are sure to suggest that there are deep political motives in this move to move beyond the Bears and Pandas for one year. Maybe. Maybe not. Rightly or wrongly, political movements are seen in every action these days.
If additional explanations are required, Alberta’s UCP government is sure to be singled out as cause number three; they inherited an entity in severe financial difficulty, ensuring that some budget cuts would be made as soon as possible after the NDP lost political control of the province.
This, of course, occurred well before the coronavirus crisis created overwhelming proof that sport, certainly in Canada, is something of an after-thought at all levels of society. As this is written, every professional sport is being exposed on a daily basis as a means for millionaires and billionaires to fatten their bankrolls. If timely political statements are necessary, fine; they’ll be made, but no rational soul would dare to suggest that sport has actual relevance in this time of incoherent arguments and twisted responses.
In one old scribbler’s opinion, good news ultimately will develop, almost as a result of the disappearance of the Bears and Pandas for at least one season. A move so dramatic at a level so vital is sure to create deep thought.
Which is where university sport fits in the puzzle. These organizations are the home of undoubted brilliance. In many ways, they create the model for all amateurs and low-profile professionals to follow. One day, perhaps soon, this world-wide rash of social, physical and emotional misery will be behind us. Then, cohorts of tough and committed leaders across the entire spectrum of athletics will have to step up. They will be obligated to contribute time and effort in a search for the best possible ways to ensure excellence in scholastics, citizenship and competition.
Now, looking back for even a few years, it’s essential to remember that amateur sports were being painfully slammed by financial necessities before COVID-19’s destructive arrival.
Athletic directors at U of A and MacEwan University have spoken of rising costs in tones that sometimes sounded almost desperate. I’m sure the same applies to the University of Calgary.
Similar words have been heard commonly in discussion with coaches and athletic directors at Alberta colleges. NAIT and Concordia leaders know the topic extremely well. So do alumni members working to keep hockey alive in the storied atmosphere of Camrose’s Augustana campus of the U of A.
In a lifetime of hearing old adages, one has stuck out since childhood:
“It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn.”
This corner hopes the dawn comes quickly.
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