Passing of Joe Bolarinho

Peacefully in his home, surrounded by his loving family,on Tuesday August 25th, 2009, at the age of 55 Joe Bolarinho passed away after a long fight with liver cancer. Joe was the caretaker at Regiopolis-Notre Dame High School in Kingston (my highschool) for the past 32 years and a friend to anyone who he came in contact with. Being an athlete and spending vast amounts of time after after school waiting for practice, I remember Mr. Bolarinho always being there, to help with whatever we needed with. He wasn't a teacher so he didn't treat the students like students! It was quite alright to joke around with Mr. Bolarinho and he treated everyone with respect.
R.I.P. Mr. Bolarinho
here is a short video:

Assistant Coach of the McMaster Mens Volleyball Team

Well it's now official. I have accepted an employment position as well as the assistant coaching role at McMaster University.

I am currently the Marketing Coordinator for Athletics and Recreation. What that means is I will trying to bring greater awareness to athletics from the student body and community. The MSU and Athletics and Recreation already have a lot of great ideas. It will be my responsibility to make these ideas a reality.

As for coaching, I will be learning from my long term coach and friend Dave Preston. This is shaping up to be a pretty fun year as aside from our regular season, we've got matches in Kingston, California and British Columbia.

Only two weeks away and much to do to keep me excited.

New Link for all Games of 2008/2009 Season

Just found a link that my coach Suichi Mizuno put up of all our games in the 2008-2009 season of my team in Middelfart.

http://www.veoh.com/group/middelfart-vk
enjoy

Marauder Television- Coming Soon...

This is the intro video for the Marauder Television that I hope to be launching in September. Let me know what you think...

Team Ontario Results

After five days in Kelowna BC, and 8 matches, the Team Ontario u18 boys team walked away with a Bronze Medal. In pool play, they finished with a 2-3 record which was good enough for 4th place. This put the Team O boys against Manitoba in the quarter finals- a team only two days ago that they had beaten in a five set match. It only took them four sets to dispose of the Toba boys which put the Team O boys against the tournament number 1 seed and only undefeated team in the tournament- Alberta. After falling behind 1-0, the Team O boys rallied back to even the score 1-1 with some aggressive serving. However, Alberta showed their age and poise and took the next two sets. The boys should be commended for being only 1 of 2 teams to take a set off of the Alberta team. After the loss, Team Ontario had a couple to regroup to play in the Bronze medal match against British Columbia 2. BC2 had beaten Team O in pool play in the thrilling 5 set match, however the Team Ontario boys showed what they had learned playing a veteran Alberta team and shut down both of BC2's big offensive stars to win the Bronze in 3 sets.
The playoff box scores are as follows:

Quarter Final 1 Ontario vs Manitoba 25-22, 14-25, 25-21, 25-16
Quarter Final 2 BC 2 vs Québec 27-25, 25-18, 25-20
Semi-Final 1 Alberta vs Ontario 25-16, 14-14, 25-22, 25-15
Semi-Final 2 BC 1 vs BC 2 25-15, 25-20, 25-22
5th Place Manitoba vs Québec 25-27, 25-14, 25-17, 16-25, 20-18
Bronze Medal Ontario vs BC 2 25-21, 25-18, 25-26
Gold Medal Alberta vs BC 1 25-18, 25-20, 20-25, 16-25

Individual stats for the entire tournament can be accessed here:

Team O Stats

If you have trouble accessing them please leave me a comment

Individual Awards
2009 NTCC Tournament All-Stars

Nicholas Hoag Québec
T.J. Sanders Ontario
David Klomps BC 2
Daniel JansenVanDoorn BC 1
Jarron Mueller Alberta
Nate Speijer BC 1

Tournament MVP

Kenny Rauwerda Alberta


I will write more about my Team Ontario coaching experience soon, but to all the players please continue to keep in touch, big things are out there for all of you

Some Team Ontario Pics

Team Ontario update

We have now been living in residence at the University of Toronto for a week training daily at Varsity Arena. It's a pretty interesting setup where we have 3 volleyball courts covered in sport court where the ice hockey rink usually is (I'll include pictures when I'm not updating from my blackberry!). The boys seem to be coming together quickly on the court as they've been working quite hard. Some highlights would include a 27 lap run around the track, strength and conditioning with Mike Sleen and a split squad scrimmage between the team. Off the court we had 2 days away from the volleyball court on Wednesday and Thursday. Aside from some plyos and classroom sessions the team headed to Ash Bridges Bay to play a little beach volleyball. I would like to say that I won the tourni but with a 1 and 4 record I doubt that that would be very accurate!
After that, we showered up and got ready for our next team bonding event- a trip to Medievil Times! Our team got to cheer for the Green Knight (the evil one!) Who ended up being a highly skilled knight. I won't ruin the show for anyone that's still planning on going. Anyways we all wore our green crowns on the bus and subway back to residence. Probably woulda looked stupid if it was just one or two of us- but with all of us- just show that there's strength in numbers when we act together as a team... That was todays lesson! For the boys reading the blog... Keep up the good work!