VOLLEYBALL: RUDY’S SET TO BUMP OFF BELGIUM RIVALS
Critical match against Belgium tonight will set tone for Canadian players
Given the fact that nearly every ball sport known to man has professional leagues of some kind or another in Europe, franchises, by necessity, seem to wind up in every small locale with a serviceable gym.
Handball, volleyball, basketball, wheelchair basketball; generous corporate sponsors ensure they all have a presence.
Rudy Verhoeff, a one- time CIS volleyball player of the year with the Langleybased Trinity Western University Spartans, just finished up his first pro season in France’s top league in Chaumont, a town of just 23,000 on the Marne River in the northeastern part of the country.
“It was a really good first experience,” the Canadian national team player says of a club whose other internationals were from Latvia and Serbia.
“The city I played for, though, was a smaller town and with that, the only fun thing to go do on a weekend, on a Saturday night, was watch volleyball. So we got really good fan support.”
He only had a one- year contract, however, and has decided to move on, signing for next season with a team in Corsica, the sun- splashed, French- controlled island in the Mediterranean, where his teammates will include another Canadian and an American.
“I liked it ( in Chaumont), but half the experience of playing pro is seeing different areas. That was part of the decision, and there were a few other personal reasons.”
His new team plays out of the city of Ajaccio, whose most notable claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of that noted attacker and middle hitter, Napoleon Bonaparte. We joke, of course. The diminutive first emperor of France died 74 years before volleyball was invented and could have walked under a net without ducking.
At 6- foot- 5, Verhoeff, a Calgary native who now calls Langley home for the odd time he does get “home,” is more than a foot taller than Napoleon. He and the rest of the national team play a crucial FIVB World League series with Belgium tonight ( 7 p. m.) and Saturday ( 5 p. m.) at UBC’s Doug Mitchell Sports Centre.
Both countries are 3- 1 in the fourcountry Pool C after splitting matches last weekend in Antwerp, Belgium. But Canada trails 10- 7 on points because a five- set win counts for one less point. Canada won the opening match 25- 22, 21- 25, 17- 25, 25- 20, 16- 14, but Belgium took the second 33- 31, 25- 12, 21- 25, 25- 23.
Canada needed five sets in the second night of a sweep of Finland in Calgary on the opening weekend of play and plays Australia next weekend in Edmonton. The Canadians must also then travel to Finland and Australia.
“It’s a gruelling stretch, going back and forth to Europe and having to go to Australia,” says Verhoeff. “Pretty exhausting.”
Only one team advances out of pool play in the 28- country tournament. Canada, with an upset of reigning Olympic champion Russia, was a bestever fifth in the 2013 World League when it featured just 18 countries.
“Belgium is a very strong team … this is their first time in World League, but we knew they were going to be the toughest competition in our pool,” said Verhoeff, while noting the environment was particularly “hostile” in the 4,000- seat arena in Antwerp.
“We had a lapse on the second night and the result was not what we wanted. We didn’t play up to how we should.”
Verhoeff said the Canadians will have to be better on the serve this weekend and tighten up what he calls their “small- ball” attack.
“It needs to be perfect, but that gets difficult when you get tired.”
He said a sweep of Belgium this weekend would put Canada in a good position to advance.
“But more the goal is we want to start playing well. Yeah, that’s the reality ( that a sweep would be good), but we’re not so focused on that. We need to get playing at a level we’re capable of. Everything is directed toward the ( 2016) Olympics trying to get better.”
Canada hasn’t competed in men’s Olympic volleyball since 1992.