The Trinity Western University Spartans are going to Russia with love. That, and a few volleyballs.
Working in conjunction with Athletes in Action, the Spartans men’s volleyball team is leaving on Aug. 28 for a 16-day missions and training trip that will take them to Sochi – the site of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games – Krasnodar, Anapa, Maykop and Moscow.
“Athletes in Action had a need in Russia and we’ve tried to do it in previous years and it just didn’t work out,” said Spartans coach Ben Josephson. “This year was a good chance for us to fill their need while also providing us an awesome avenue in which to kick off the season.
“This is basically going to be our training camp. We won’t have that much time for practice but we’re going to have a lot of match play where we can work on a lot of stuff.”
With missions in mind, the team will also have an opportunity to talk with local church pastors to discuss sport ministry as well as meeting with youth groups and possibly working in a local orphanage.
Josephson also plans to take his team to a prison where they’ll run a volleyball clinic and play two games with prisoners and prison staff.
“We’re going to be doing a ton of missions work and spiritual and leadership development,” Josephson said. “It’s going to be great chance for team building and developing chemistry. Usually that happens on our first road trip, but this year our first road trip is on a different continent and it’s going to be an excellent opportunity.
“This trip is going to push our guys hard mentally,” Josephson said. “We’ll get a lot of issues out front quickly, so we can find out who we are, what can do and what we need to work on.”
The Spartans will play up to 12 games and one beach volleyball tournament and, although they don't know exactly how good their opposition will be, it’s bound to be a challenge given the quality of world class volleyball coming out of Russia recently. The senior national side is second in the FIVB Senior World Rankings and won a bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
“We don’t know the level of competition we’ll have, but I’m sure they’ll have a lot of huge guys and we’ll just have to make adjustments on the fly,” Josephson said. “Our depth is really exciting. We have 15 players who we can play without losing much of a step.”
To prepare for this tour, the Spartans took to the court Thursday for quick three-day preparation period at the Langley Events Centre.
The trip to Russia is the beginning of a long season for TWU that won’t end until the weekend of March 4- 6, 2010 when the Spartans will host the CIS men's volleyball national championship.
Read other stories like this on the TWU Impact Athletics page.
Author: Mark Janzen
Email: Mark.Janzen@twu.ca
Originally published at twu.ca/athletics