Success pays volleyball fans net dividends
Volleyball fans have a chance to see the biggest names in the sport tonight, which is one of the reasons they’ll get to enjoy one of the biggest events in volleyball next year.
The U.S. Men’s National Volleyball Team’s matches against Serbia and Montenegro at 8 p.m. today and Saturday at the Spokane Arena are one piece of the puzzle that allows Spokane to hold a much larger Pacific Northwest qualifying tournament in March.
Though Spokane has held a qualifying tournament for about 10 years, it has been for the club team division. USA Volleyball has allowed Spokane to add an open division, which will add a second weekend with around 150 teams to the club weekend that brings around 250 teams.
“It’s not unlike the way we got the NCAA to give us the men’s basketball tournament,” said Kevin Twohig, general manager of the Arena. “It was a process of them giving us an (NCAA) volleyball event which we sold out, which got them to give us a women’s (NCAA) basketball event which sold out. There is a connection to all those events.
“We’re trying to do the same thing with USA Volleyball.”
This 2006 FIVA World League stop won’t be a money maker. The weekends of March 23-25 and March 30-April 1 are.
“It’s just a huge economic impact event,” Twohig said.
Spokane is the smallest among the 10 cities that play host to the qualifying events for national volleyball tournaments.
“Spokane has always been sort of a volleyball Mecca,” Twohig said. “We’re getting more high-profile events that reflect that.”
Spike and Dig
Spokane’s volleyball answer to Bloomsday and Hoopfest is also this weekend with the 6-on-6 outdoor Spike and Dig Tournament at Spokane Falls Community College.
Team USA is helping out with players turning out Saturday for a meet and greet from 2 to 3 p.m.
More than 200 teams and 1,300 players hit outdoor courts for the 15th annual event. They are divided into adult, high school and junior high divisions.
Play begins at 9 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday. The tournament will wrap up by 5 p.m. Sunday.
World League
Team USA has not participated in the World League for five years because it did not have a television contract for the games as mandated by FIVA, according to U.S. coach Hugh McCutcheon.
However, the international competition expanded to 16 countries spread over five continents and the U.S. jumped back in with CSTV agreeing to televise all the home matches live.
“We’ve been complaining we haven’t been in the World League in a long time and we have to get out of altitude,” USA outside hitter Reid Priddy said. “Now we’re in the World League and the team has moved to Anaheim (from Colorado Springs).
“The World League is vital to our success in 2008,” McCutcheon said. “If we’re not in the competition, we’re not getting this minimum of 12 matches in a meaningful environment against good competition. … To be back in it is a big deal to us.”
The U.S. is in a four-team pool with Serbia and Montenegro, Poland and Japan. The teams play each other two best-of-5 matches, home and home. The Americans are 4-2, having swept Japan 2-0 in both meetings after losing 2-0 to Poland.
“It’s a great tournament,” Priddy said. “You have to come out every weekend and play World Cup level every night, back-to-back. You have to maintain a high level of volleyball over six or seven weeks. It’s very good in terms of experience.”
When pool play finishes, six teams advance to the championships in Russia in late August – the pool champions, the host team or runner-up of that pool and a wild-card team.
“We’re trying to win the pool. If we’re lucky enough to get the wild card, so be it,” McCutcheon said. “It’s not part of our equation at all.”