Hey everyone,
We have returned to Canada and have been back at UBC for the past few days. Many of us are struggling with the effects of the time change and have been waking up around 6am which is not bad thing as it gives us more time to catch up on the school we have missed. The team will enjoy a few more days rest and continue our pre season training come Monday.
In other volleyball news be sure to follow the Canadian Mens National team as they are one week away from competing in the 2010 World championships in Italy. They are currently traveling around Europe playing in various exhibition matches. You can follow along with updates and blog entries at www.volleyball.ca
thanks for reading
-Team VolleyHype
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Korea Trip Update #3
The UBC T-birds continue their foreign expedition in Korea into early August. The thunderbirds were awarded a Sunday off for recovery to maintain both physical and mental intensity. The thunderbirds used this day to tour parts of Itaewon and Seoul. They managed to catch up on some forms of Korean street life. They strolled a marketplace-like neighborhood in Itaewon, not only enjoying local restaurants and shops but allowed themselves to browse the local street vendors as well. Many of the team members picked up some phenomenal swag and a plethora of different types of clothing and accessories. Satisfied, the birds took to a 5 story marketplace in Seoul. The marketplace featured not only local businesses, but larger known labels including Mizuno, Asics, Converse and Puma. Highlighting this trip included many players purchasing Mizuno high tops.
Fresh off the day's rest on Sunday, the birds went back to the court on Monday. Despite having the morning off practice, the birds used the time for a video session. They took to the court in a friendly Monday evening against Hanyang University. The birds were unable to take a set off the team but showed great promise in the last couple sets of the match. Strong performances were given from setter Ryan Zwarich and middle, Yari Kozel. Later into the match, Rex Fenton started experiencing abdominal problems which soon escalated into very serious abdominal pains. Immediately following the match, Rex had to be rushed to the local hospital which was located on campus. Trainer Cam Quan and Richard Schick stayed behind as the rest of the team returned to the hotel. After treatment, Rex quickly recovered, making it back to the hotel for later that evening.
Tuesday was a very memorable day. The thunderbirds started the morning with an AM practice in the main gym of SKK, preparing for their nighttime game. It was a short lived hour long serve and pass session which was aiming at simple adjustments before the night. Come game time, it was apparent the birds were ready. UBC and SKK both put on spectacular performances. After losing the first set, the Tbirds came back and took the next 2 making it a 2-1 game lead for the birds. Despite close 4th and 5th sets, the birds ended up losing a 5th set heartbreak. The was a feeling of mutual respect felt by both sides for the high caliber of play. Many birds had fantastic nights including the attacking prowess of Demijan Savija balanced with the dynamic force of Ben Chow at power. Chris Klassen had an effective setting game and was distributing the ball nicely.All three serve receivers passed relatively well for the match and the teams defensive effort within the five sets baffled the crowd. Up at the net Joe managed a number of blocks to high to count, many of which left turned heads by the sheer force at which they met the ground. Cary Brett maintained the intimidation at the net during his front row play as the Korean side started using more off speed shots.
The two teams shared photos after the match. Following the game, the teams met for a final team banquet. Speeches from coaches and administrators were met with multiple rounds of applause and the fine quality of the food ensured that the already intimate atmosphere thrived for the duration. Before departing, team members exchanged jerseys and hugs. The overall feeling of the clubs was based around the short built friendship which both teams are both eager to uphold.
The T-birds are now in the final stretch of their trip and will play a couple more matches against a university team as well as a professional squad.
Thanks for reading
-Team Volleyhype
Fresh off the day's rest on Sunday, the birds went back to the court on Monday. Despite having the morning off practice, the birds used the time for a video session. They took to the court in a friendly Monday evening against Hanyang University. The birds were unable to take a set off the team but showed great promise in the last couple sets of the match. Strong performances were given from setter Ryan Zwarich and middle, Yari Kozel. Later into the match, Rex Fenton started experiencing abdominal problems which soon escalated into very serious abdominal pains. Immediately following the match, Rex had to be rushed to the local hospital which was located on campus. Trainer Cam Quan and Richard Schick stayed behind as the rest of the team returned to the hotel. After treatment, Rex quickly recovered, making it back to the hotel for later that evening.
Tuesday was a very memorable day. The thunderbirds started the morning with an AM practice in the main gym of SKK, preparing for their nighttime game. It was a short lived hour long serve and pass session which was aiming at simple adjustments before the night. Come game time, it was apparent the birds were ready. UBC and SKK both put on spectacular performances. After losing the first set, the Tbirds came back and took the next 2 making it a 2-1 game lead for the birds. Despite close 4th and 5th sets, the birds ended up losing a 5th set heartbreak. The was a feeling of mutual respect felt by both sides for the high caliber of play. Many birds had fantastic nights including the attacking prowess of Demijan Savija balanced with the dynamic force of Ben Chow at power. Chris Klassen had an effective setting game and was distributing the ball nicely.All three serve receivers passed relatively well for the match and the teams defensive effort within the five sets baffled the crowd. Up at the net Joe managed a number of blocks to high to count, many of which left turned heads by the sheer force at which they met the ground. Cary Brett maintained the intimidation at the net during his front row play as the Korean side started using more off speed shots.
The two teams shared photos after the match. Following the game, the teams met for a final team banquet. Speeches from coaches and administrators were met with multiple rounds of applause and the fine quality of the food ensured that the already intimate atmosphere thrived for the duration. Before departing, team members exchanged jerseys and hugs. The overall feeling of the clubs was based around the short built friendship which both teams are both eager to uphold.
The T-birds are now in the final stretch of their trip and will play a couple more matches against a university team as well as a professional squad.
Thanks for reading
-Team Volleyhype
Friday, September 3, 2010
Korea Trip update #2
Hey Everyone, we have spent the last couple days training in the morning and playing exhibition matches in the late afternoon. Here are the details.
After a few team practices at the SKK training facility, the T-birds played their first scrimmage against the SKK squad. We expected a tough opponent, and we got one. Their spin serving was way tougher than most of us are used to seeing and the angles of their hits were also something else. They passed extremely well and ran an efficient offense with a ton of sky high balls to the outside. Their hitters were carving around 3 man blocks often. Seeing that style of play definitely opened some eyes and the guys definitely learned something. On the Birds side, some good things were done. The line ups were always mixed and a lot of guys did some good things. Ian Perry and Blair Bann were passing well whenever they were in. Demijan and Nathan split time on the right side as well as Joe who came in a attacked well from the right side. Robert Bennett provided consistent attacking and passed well in spurts. Klassen and Ryan split time at the setter position and newcomer Klassen surprised the SKK squad with the THROW downs.Young Gun Ben Chow and Milo “Springs” Warren showed their explosive leaping ability, hitting the ball hard and super high, but both need more consistency. The SKK side took the first 4 sets quite easily but the T birds closed out strong and took the 5th set. Overall, the number one thing that you can take from a game like this, is seeing the level of focus and consistency. The SKK side rarely miss hit balls and balls that were out were out by inches. Although the T-birds had good spurts, the level of focus and consistency needs to rise from all aspects of the game, Serving, passing, setting, hitting etc.
Game day number two was against Kyunngi University. Their style of play was a bit different than what we saw against the SKK squad. Their outside balls were not as high and had more speed to them. Their outside hitters were once again finding the angles and hitting what the block gave them. We managed to get three blockers on a lot of broken play high balls and at times had success with some highlight reel hammer blocks by Joe and Bennett. However, the Kyunngi hitters tooled the UBC block a lot to the frustration of coach Schick who was really emphasizing pressing early and giving a shot and taking it a way in the last second. Blair Bann was playing at a really high level as usual matching the opponents big spin serves with multiple impressive dime outs but struggled at times with the challenging Korean serves.Although the Thunderbird service receive did let them down at times, there were flashes of consistent passing from the Birds that kept them in a few sets and had them at 21-21 in the 2nd set. In the end the Birds lost all 5 sets but matched the Kyunngi side at times with intensity and play. Robert Bennett played well again on the left side providing well rounded crafty attacking. Ben Chow was skying as usual going over top of the block at times but needs to work on consistency, which will come with getting in rhythm with the setters. Garrett “Pin” Lavalley, the true freshman came in, in the 5th set and had some nice high swings against solid 3 man blocks. Demijan started the match and Nate finished it. Both were swinging high well over top of the Korean blocks but at the same time getting tooled time after time by their left sides. PRESS early boys! Captain Joe as mentioned had some HAMMER blocks that may have touched the center line and although middle wasn’t set as much as coach Schick wanted, Cordonier did what he could with the volume he got. Overall, another good experience for the UBC squad.
The team will train again tomorrow in the AM and then have the afternoon off. We are going to watch the finals of the Korean summer professional league and then have a social evening with SKK. The group is again eager to hit the court since the more touches we get here the better. One thing we have noticed is the amount the Korean teams train. After our scrimmage with SKK last night and our match tonight both Korean squads immediately started training right after the matches ended. Who knows for how long.
A few days without game play await, stay tuned!
Thanks for readying
-Team VolleyHype
After a few team practices at the SKK training facility, the T-birds played their first scrimmage against the SKK squad. We expected a tough opponent, and we got one. Their spin serving was way tougher than most of us are used to seeing and the angles of their hits were also something else. They passed extremely well and ran an efficient offense with a ton of sky high balls to the outside. Their hitters were carving around 3 man blocks often. Seeing that style of play definitely opened some eyes and the guys definitely learned something. On the Birds side, some good things were done. The line ups were always mixed and a lot of guys did some good things. Ian Perry and Blair Bann were passing well whenever they were in. Demijan and Nathan split time on the right side as well as Joe who came in a attacked well from the right side. Robert Bennett provided consistent attacking and passed well in spurts. Klassen and Ryan split time at the setter position and newcomer Klassen surprised the SKK squad with the THROW downs.Young Gun Ben Chow and Milo “Springs” Warren showed their explosive leaping ability, hitting the ball hard and super high, but both need more consistency. The SKK side took the first 4 sets quite easily but the T birds closed out strong and took the 5th set. Overall, the number one thing that you can take from a game like this, is seeing the level of focus and consistency. The SKK side rarely miss hit balls and balls that were out were out by inches. Although the T-birds had good spurts, the level of focus and consistency needs to rise from all aspects of the game, Serving, passing, setting, hitting etc.
Game day number two was against Kyunngi University. Their style of play was a bit different than what we saw against the SKK squad. Their outside balls were not as high and had more speed to them. Their outside hitters were once again finding the angles and hitting what the block gave them. We managed to get three blockers on a lot of broken play high balls and at times had success with some highlight reel hammer blocks by Joe and Bennett. However, the Kyunngi hitters tooled the UBC block a lot to the frustration of coach Schick who was really emphasizing pressing early and giving a shot and taking it a way in the last second. Blair Bann was playing at a really high level as usual matching the opponents big spin serves with multiple impressive dime outs but struggled at times with the challenging Korean serves.Although the Thunderbird service receive did let them down at times, there were flashes of consistent passing from the Birds that kept them in a few sets and had them at 21-21 in the 2nd set. In the end the Birds lost all 5 sets but matched the Kyunngi side at times with intensity and play. Robert Bennett played well again on the left side providing well rounded crafty attacking. Ben Chow was skying as usual going over top of the block at times but needs to work on consistency, which will come with getting in rhythm with the setters. Garrett “Pin” Lavalley, the true freshman came in, in the 5th set and had some nice high swings against solid 3 man blocks. Demijan started the match and Nate finished it. Both were swinging high well over top of the Korean blocks but at the same time getting tooled time after time by their left sides. PRESS early boys! Captain Joe as mentioned had some HAMMER blocks that may have touched the center line and although middle wasn’t set as much as coach Schick wanted, Cordonier did what he could with the volume he got. Overall, another good experience for the UBC squad.
The team will train again tomorrow in the AM and then have the afternoon off. We are going to watch the finals of the Korean summer professional league and then have a social evening with SKK. The group is again eager to hit the court since the more touches we get here the better. One thing we have noticed is the amount the Korean teams train. After our scrimmage with SKK last night and our match tonight both Korean squads immediately started training right after the matches ended. Who knows for how long.
A few days without game play await, stay tuned!
Thanks for readying
-Team VolleyHype
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Korea Trip Update #1
Hello everyone,
Here is an update of the first couple days of our trip to South Korea.
Our trip started Monday morning at 9am as all the T-birds gathered at the Vancouver international airport for our 12pm direct flight to Korea. The 16 players
travelling to Korea include
Setters: Ryan Zwarich, Chris Klassen
Wing spikers: Demijan Savija, Nate Schuck, Robert Bennett, Ben Chow, Garrett Lavalley, Milo Warren, Rex Fenton, Tanner Kozak
Middle Blockers: Yari Kozel, Joe Cordonier, Jeff Ross, Cary Brett
Liberos: Blair Bann, Ian Perry
Everybody strolled in on time looking fresh in our new UBC golf shirts and other travel attire. With a lot of time to spare before our flight took off we all exchanged some Canadian dollars into Korean Won which works out to about 1$ Can = 1000 won. After a few hours of lounging around the airport and picking up some 12 hour flight essentials it was finally time to get going. The flight went by surprisingly fast since the Air Canada flight had the on demand televisions with an amazing selection of new movies and TV shows. We arrived safely in Seoul around 3:30pm Tuesday morning and headed on a bus to our hotel. By this time some guys were starting to pass out on the bus but the excitement of being in Korea kept many of us awake. Once we got to our hotel we were all pretty amazed. It’s called “Hotel Castle” and for a good reason. We explored the area of our hotel for about an hour after dinner. As a big group of guys who are pretty tall especially in this country so we do stand out quite a bit and are noticed by pretty much everyone walking around. Everybody started to crash pretty early including my roomie “young swol” aka Ben Chow and I since we wanted to be fully rested to start with a good first training session the next morning at 10am.
We woke up and had breakfast which was comprised of some Korean food and some western food. Nonetheless it was pretty good and we were off to our first session at SKK University. Our Itinerary for the day included a 10 am weight training session and then a 4pm practice. We got to the campus and it pretty much looked like a sports school. The volleyball, basketball and baseball team were all training and what I think was the soccer team was using the weight room. Our first practice we ended up sharing the weight room with some Korean soccer players. It was a pretty cool experience just watching what they would do in the gym in comparison to us. The main differences noticed was that many of the exercises they do involve using a partner who is actively involved. For example, a partner will add increased resistance or somehow add difficulty to the exercises. They also do pretty much everything with maximum speed and a lot of reps.
Our afternoon practice started off with lots of excitement but also some difficulties. Firstly, the gym is the hottest environment I think most of us have ever played in and you almost have to change your shirt after warm up because the amount of sweating that is going on. Also they use a different ball than we do in Canada so it will take some time to get used to. We trained for two and half hours but the time simply flew by and everybody is very eager to get back to SKK campus and start training again.
We go twice again tomorrow with an on court session at 10am and than an exhibition scrimmage with the SKK team. Stay tuned to find out how it goes!
Thanks for reading
-Team VolleyHype
Here is an update of the first couple days of our trip to South Korea.
Our trip started Monday morning at 9am as all the T-birds gathered at the Vancouver international airport for our 12pm direct flight to Korea. The 16 players
travelling to Korea include
Setters: Ryan Zwarich, Chris Klassen
Wing spikers: Demijan Savija, Nate Schuck, Robert Bennett, Ben Chow, Garrett Lavalley, Milo Warren, Rex Fenton, Tanner Kozak
Middle Blockers: Yari Kozel, Joe Cordonier, Jeff Ross, Cary Brett
Liberos: Blair Bann, Ian Perry
Everybody strolled in on time looking fresh in our new UBC golf shirts and other travel attire. With a lot of time to spare before our flight took off we all exchanged some Canadian dollars into Korean Won which works out to about 1$ Can = 1000 won. After a few hours of lounging around the airport and picking up some 12 hour flight essentials it was finally time to get going. The flight went by surprisingly fast since the Air Canada flight had the on demand televisions with an amazing selection of new movies and TV shows. We arrived safely in Seoul around 3:30pm Tuesday morning and headed on a bus to our hotel. By this time some guys were starting to pass out on the bus but the excitement of being in Korea kept many of us awake. Once we got to our hotel we were all pretty amazed. It’s called “Hotel Castle” and for a good reason. We explored the area of our hotel for about an hour after dinner. As a big group of guys who are pretty tall especially in this country so we do stand out quite a bit and are noticed by pretty much everyone walking around. Everybody started to crash pretty early including my roomie “young swol” aka Ben Chow and I since we wanted to be fully rested to start with a good first training session the next morning at 10am.
We woke up and had breakfast which was comprised of some Korean food and some western food. Nonetheless it was pretty good and we were off to our first session at SKK University. Our Itinerary for the day included a 10 am weight training session and then a 4pm practice. We got to the campus and it pretty much looked like a sports school. The volleyball, basketball and baseball team were all training and what I think was the soccer team was using the weight room. Our first practice we ended up sharing the weight room with some Korean soccer players. It was a pretty cool experience just watching what they would do in the gym in comparison to us. The main differences noticed was that many of the exercises they do involve using a partner who is actively involved. For example, a partner will add increased resistance or somehow add difficulty to the exercises. They also do pretty much everything with maximum speed and a lot of reps.
Our afternoon practice started off with lots of excitement but also some difficulties. Firstly, the gym is the hottest environment I think most of us have ever played in and you almost have to change your shirt after warm up because the amount of sweating that is going on. Also they use a different ball than we do in Canada so it will take some time to get used to. We trained for two and half hours but the time simply flew by and everybody is very eager to get back to SKK campus and start training again.
We go twice again tomorrow with an on court session at 10am and than an exhibition scrimmage with the SKK team. Stay tuned to find out how it goes!
Thanks for reading
-Team VolleyHype
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