Akwesasne Soaring Eagles Volleyball expands to beach volleyball

Akwesasne Soaring Eagles volleyball club is now an inaugural member of the Ontario Volleyball Association Beach Volleyball tournament circuit with five teams competing in 12U - 13U - 14U - 16U & 17U. The girls are consider high performance beach and will be competing June-August 2011 ending their season with Provincials August 6th.  They will also qualify for Nationals after competing at provincials.  

For the 12U team Tianna Back and Bailey Thomas competed at the Ashbridges Bay Beach OVA tournament this past weekend in Toronto and placed ninth out of fourteen teams.  Akwesasne Beach team’s next tournament is in Ottawa June 25th.

The Soaring Eagles volleyball club and the Kawehno:ke Recreation are working together to build a practice sand court at the Kawehno:ke Recreation courts on Recreation Road, this court is being constructed now and should be ready for Monday.  The girls are looking forward to having a place to practice close to home.  The Kawehno:ke recreation is also repairing the tennis courts, basketball court, lacrosse wall and will be creating a sand box for young children.

The Akwesasne Area Management Board has given the Soaring Eagles an opportunity to hire a Post-Secondary student to assist with the summer beach volleyball program and the development of beach courts in Akwesasne.

We welcome on board Kayla Skidders, a member of the Soaring Eagles volleyball club, 3-time provincial gold medalist, North American Indigenous Games Silver medalist 2001 and Bronz medalist at the World youth games in Holland.  Kayla is a level I national certified coach and has been an assistant coach this year with the 13U team.  She will organize practices, leagues and tournament for youth and adults; a Beach spike babes program for 6-8 year olds and beach coaches clinics.  Kayla will also be involved in developing and executing a fundraising plan to raise funds for a purpose 4 sand courts at a designated area at the A’nowara’ko:wa arena.  She will also attend Camp Madawaska with our youth who will be attending the camp this year in August.

Congratulations to Soaring Eagle coaches Chelsea Sunday and Mike Labelle for their recent accomplishments with Volleyball Canada, they will both be very involved with the Mens PanAm Games in Gatineau, Quebec as technical assistance from June 13-18 with hosting teams from Venezuela, Bahamas, Dominican Republic, USA, Mexico, Argentina, Puerto Rico and Brazil. The PanAm cup involves the top ranking countries in the NORCECA and the South American zones. For  tickets go to the http://www.volleyballcanada.com to stop in and watch some great volleyball – you may see Chelsea and Mike working the side lines.  

Akwesasne community and Team Eastern Door volleyball have recently submitted an application to host the National Aboriginal Volleyball championships in July 2012; with much debate and competition we waited patiently.  On Monday June 6th, we received the call from Norman Ettawacappo NAIG council - Aboriginal Sport Circle that we have won the bid to host the volleyball championships. The championships will include two age categories 17U and 20U in both male and female divisions to be played out of the A’nowara’ko:wa arena July 31-August 5, 2012.  This is great news and we are grateful to all that were involved in the submission.

Coming soon will be our summer Beach programs, for more information you can contact Kayla Skidders at 613-932-1238 or email [email protected]