JUST OVER 100 Canadian volleyball players, team officials and spectators are set to descend on Barbados when the 4th VolleyBarbados Women’s Championships serve off at the Gymnasium at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex on December 29.
The championships, which run until January 3, have been designed to attract university, college and club teams from North America, Central America and the Caribbean.
Returning to defend their title will be three-time champions University of Montreal Carabins.
Also in the line-up will be Bois de Boulogne College Cavaliers, who are making their second appearance. They finished third last year.
Three teams will be making their debuts at this event, which will be the biggest to date since the first championships were held in 2008.
They are University of British Columbia Okanagan Heat, Brandon University Bobcats and the University of Calgary Dinos. Rounding out the six-team tournament will be local 2013 Division I League and Knockout queens, Flow Sentry Brokers Deacons.
Deacons, who completed a perfect domestic season this year will be keen to maintain their unblemished record to close out the year and start 2014 in winning fashion.
To this end fans can look out for a few key players from the recently concluded domestic league suiting up and joining the Deacons roster as they make a bid to be the first local team to defeat the powerful Montreal University Carabins.
Carabins head coach Olivier Trudel said: “We are just counting down the days till we return to Barbados.
“My team is eagerly looking forward to coming to warm Barbados and escaping the minus 20 degree Celsius weather we are having in Montreal. We look forward to playing volleyball in beautiful Barbados again and we are glad to be a part of this growing event.
“We are particularly excited about this upcoming tournament because it allows us to play other Canadian teams who are not in our conference and we would not normally get the chance to play against,”
he added. (PR/EZS)
