Champions!

On Saturday, the league that I've been dropping into had its first organized tournament. Organized by Russians working at the Samsung Semiconductor facility, the league draws Russians, North Americans, and occasionally some Koreans out to its weekly recreational games. The idea for this tournament was to have each group put together a team to compete in a more formal fashion.

I was on the International Volleyball Gangsters (aka Team North America), comprising of two Canadians, three Americans and a borrowed Ukrainian. We played against three different Russian teams and one Korean team. All in all, there were people from at least 6 different nationalities there.

I did start my morning way too early (6:35) and catching a two-hour bus ride to the court (9:30), but it was well worth it. The games were all hard-fought, and though we only lost one set--against the second-place Russian team--we weren't blowing the other teams away.

As expected, I had some fun hitting and blocking (see picture to left), but I also thought my overall game was pretty good. I was digging and playing defence as well as the rest of my team, so I was proud.

Though I've only played with these players once or twice, and the whole team hadn't played together before Saturday, we played well together, and it was really nice to be playing for keeps again, so to speak.