Canadian volleyball team battles snowy 14-hour trek to play in Hawaii

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The TransPacific Volleyball Championships begin Saturday.

This year, it’s bigger than ever with 400 teams from 13 different states and six countries — including a squad from a small town in Canada.

A volleyball tournament centered in the heart of Honolulu is an easy sell to the dozens of teams battling the cold winter weather on the continent.

It even got Dawson Creek Volleyball Club, from British Columbia, Canada, to punch their tickets.

However, what does a travel day look like to get to the islands?

“It’s about a two-hour drive, then we take a short flight to Vancouver. We’ll be laid over in Vancouver for most of the day. Then we’ll fly out and it’s about a six-hour flight to get there. So it’s a 14-hour trip,” said head coach Terri Spencer.

Even before the team boards their flight, there’s a long to-do list that needs to get done.

For one, it’s making sure everyone’s passports are up to date.

It also means getting acquainted with a different set of court rules.

“In Canada, the libero cannot serve, so that was a big change for us. Also, I believe in the states you can have two liberos go in and out, and we can’t here. Our team also caught onto the legging trend in Hawaii. We noticed a lot of girls play in leggings and not shorts,” said outside hitter Arielle Spencer.

Arielle Spencer is one of two players on the team that traveled to this exact tournament two years ago.

She says not only is the style of play different, but the overall game day experience.

“It’s so small here, volleyball. We see like six courts maybe most, so when walking into that gym, it was huge. The music, the environment was really exciting,” said Arielle Spencer.

This opportunity came to fruition when head coach Terri Spencer wanted to reward her players for their hard work juggling the unprecedented circumstances of COVID-19.

“I also really wanted to entice players from around the region to come and play here, and that’s just a super easy way to get them interested and to travel internationally, especially some of them that haven’t,” said Terri Spencer.

Mission accomplished.

Lillian Moore lives in Fort St. John, a town over from Dawson Creek, but asked her parents if she could commute to play for a club with bigger opportunities like this one.

“It now takes me like an hour and a half for my whole commute to volleyball, so that’s a different thing obviously with how much time I’m spending, but it’s worth it,” said Moore.

While prepping for the tournament, the team says they’re not changing too much of their identity.

They also believe they have skills that other teams can learn from, but collectively, they said they’re most excited to get out of the cold weather.

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