Not ready to go on volleyball tour
My legs and arms were a little sore on Sunday, and even into Monday, following the run made by my family team at Spike’s Indoor Beach?Volleyball tournament in London this past Saturday.
To anyone who has never experienced indoor beach volleyball, and who thinks their knees are up to the task, I highly recommend it.
This tournament was my third time taking part in the Canadianized version of the summer sport, and though my team may not have fared as well in this go-round, I still had a lot of fun.
My team was composed mainly of Rankin family cousins, with some spouses and siblings thrown in for good balance. I was our youngest member. The  average age for our team now hovers somewhere around 30, something I am having trouble coming to terms with as, in past athletic endeavours such as St. Marys’ annual Snow-pitch tournament, our average age was in the early-to-mid 20’s.
We were dubbed the Nanners, a nod to our grandma who, for as long as anyone can remember, has gone by the name Nan.
The Nanners went 2-2 in our first matches, a record which, perhaps, hides the rustiness that pervaded in our first few brief rallies.
I flubbed an early serve and bumped a return high into the out-of-bounds mesh myself, to say nothing of the numerous communication breakdowns that led to a few easy aces for our opponents.
It could be that my team of young professionals was outgunned by the mainly collegiate crowd taking part in the tournament, and our record heading into the playoffs (2-5) seems to reflect this.
In our lone playoff game we made a valiant effort, leading at one point by a score of 19-11, but, ultimately, our inexperience and the sensory-dulling effects of alcohol led to our heartbreaking 26-24 demise.
As some consolation, a disproportionately large number of my teammates, including yours truly, won door prizes, and my cousin Steve even took home the?$70 50/50 prize.
Considering we’d each paid only $12 for entry into the tournament, this was, as Steve quipped, better than a kick in the pants.
As the average age of our pool of Rankin athletes ages steadily, I think the odds of us sweeping our bracket and bringing home a championship trophy might dwindle, but if Saturday is any indication, I don’t think the odds on us having fun are going to change that much.
I overheard some competitors on another team discussing the tournament and I think they summed it up rather succinctly.
“You’ve got to come out to these things every so often to prove to yourself you can still do it,” one player said to his friend.
His friend, who had, it seemed, discovered information that countered that ambition, sipped his drink and replied, “well, that’s the hope.”