Universiade 2009

Well folks, here we are a year later and back for another National Team Journey. This time I will be an assistant with the Women’s National Development team heading to the World Universiade in Belgrade, Serbia. Many people have asked if I will continue the blogging like last year so the answer is yes provided we have good internet access in Serbia.

If you asked 100 people to list the countries they would most like to visit I would be willing to wager that none of them would have Serbia on their list. For me however, it has been on my top 5 list for many years. Why would I say Serbia you ask? Well as you know, I have a little bit of a passion for the game of basketball and on the international scene Serbia is known as “the land of basketball”. I have always wanted to go there to see just how crazy people are about basketball. I am really looking forward to it and hopefully I will get a chance to experience a lot of basketball. Just to stop you from guessing, Italy, Spain, Greece and Australia are the other 4 in the top 5. All basketball related of course. That’s also why a relatively unknown like Lithuania creeps into my top 10.

We are leaving on the 24th and will be away for 19 days as we train for about 6 days before we begin playing in the tournament. Our team is relatively young but from what I know of the players on the team I think I will enjoy the team. Our team consists of the following players:

Carolann Cloutier - Quebec - Old Dominion University
Chanel St. Amour - Quebec - Universite Laval
Marie Michelle Genois - Quebec - Universite Laval
Zara Huntley - Nova Scotia - UBC
Kayla Dykstra - Alberta - UVIC
Robyn Buna - BC - Simon Fraser
Laurelle Weigl - Alberta - Simon Fraser
Courtney Pilypaitis - Ontario - Vermont
Vanessa Kabongo - Ontario - Delaware
Kalisha Keane - Ontario - Michigan State
and of course our own Kelsey Hodgson

We are in a pool at the games with Australia (defending champ), Japan and the Czech Republic. On July 1 we play the Czech Republic, July 2 we play Japan and July 3 we play Australia. On the 4th we have a day off and then play the crossover section of the tourney after the day off. This will all be determined by results.

As far as travel goes, Kelsey and I will leave Cape Breton on Wednesday morning and drive to Halifax. We will catch a flight at approx. 3pm for Montreal. In Montreal we catch a flight at 7:15PM to Paris. We land in Paris at 8:05AM on July 25th and then catch a flight at 9:35AM arriving in Belgrade at 11:50 AM. Factor in the 5 hour time change and we are traveling for roughly 22 hours straight. Should be fun.

Having Kelsey with me will be nice though. It is her first international trip and I can help her adjust to the travel a little. It is also a great feeling to watch somebody work really hard to make themselves better and then share it with them when they get the chance to realize a dream. I told her that there is no feeling like hearing your national anthem while wearing the red and white. I am looking forward to experiencing that moment with her.

I have to mention how supportive our university has been in this initiative to get Phil Nkrumah, Kelsey and myself to this universiade. The administration and our athletic director are incredibly supportive of what we do and that support is tremendously appreciated.

So I’ll keep the first post relatively short. There will be lots to talk about I am sure. With 7500 athletes and this being the 2nd biggest sporting event behind the Olympics I am sure there will be a lot of stories to tell. So hopefully the internet access will be OK as I know many people like this blog but most importantly, my mom gets to check up on how things are going and keep an eye on me.

So sit back, relax and try to enjoy this ride through the often bizarre eyes of a somewhat rotund and slightly gray haired basketball coach.