ONE TEAM, ONE DREAM

Steven Cheung, a second year player with the Humber Hawks, can and has turned a game around with his fine defensive play over his career at Humber. At 5’ 6” tall he is consistently the smallest player on the court, but he also is the player most counted on when a ball eludes the block. Although he did not start playing the sport until he was sixteen, he has developed a passion and work ethic that is second to none. His other love is badminton and he has exercised this affection as he is a member of the Hawks badminton team as well.

Follow Steven’s journey at the CCAA National Championship in Edmonton, Alberta as he and his teammates challenge for a championship title.

Day 1 - Travel Day

The day has come to leave for Nationals! The team is filled with excitement and anticipation to make history for Ontario. Humber is proud to represent Ontario and we're itching to play. We had a "light-hearted" practice before we left. Well, it was supposed to be light, but the team is has so much fire in the belly that everyone is playing at 100%. Coach Wayne likes to call us Race Horses, and we're roaring to go.

After practice, we get an hour to get ready for the airport. Our Athletic Dirctor, Doug Fox, graciously took care of our accommodations and also drove us to the airport. The expectation for the team is high, but laughter and rowdiness fills the airport.

Although we are a Men's team, some of my teammates are still in the transition stage to manhood. Terell Bramwell decides to check his carry-on bag in, and still take it with him. Shortly after, "Terell Bramwell, please report to security." is announced on the intercom. Not only that, a two hour wait for our plane, West Jet 519, and Mac Robertson loses his boarding pass and passport within 10 minutes of sitting down. (He may have left it in the bathroom). Thankfully, a good Samaritan returns both his boarding pass and passport to him 5 minutes before we board the plane. It must be fate or someone is looking after the Hawks. Nobody will be left behind.

Four short hours later, we arrive in Edmonton! Laughter and rowdiness still fills the airport. It's the Humber swagger we take everywhere. Thankfully, none of our luggage gets lost. It would be terrible if someone didn't have their equipment to play at Nationals. However, the night did not go without incident. Four vans for our team. Four different incidences.

One van got lost on the way to hotel, taking a 60 minute detour.

Another van had a flat tire.

Another van had a broken windshield.

The last van has no problems at all. Plus, it's a gold paint job. Perhaps this is an omen. Coach Wayne says it's a predication of the things to come. You definitely want to be in this van. The Gold Van! You just want to bask in the glory and take in all the gold that shines out of it. But I digress...

So we land at 9:45pm, Edmonton Time. By the time everyone gets to the hotel, it's close to 12am. We have our meeting. Go through the itinerary. And lights out at 1:30am.

That's the end of day one.

More exciting news to come... One Team, One Dream.

--Steven Cheung

Day 2 - Banquet Day

The Over View:
9:00 am wake up call.
10:10 am Terrel gets out of bed.
10:15 am The team leaves for Grant MacEwan.
11:00 am Coaches and Captains meeting at 11am.
11:30 am Practice.
12:30 am We meet our Hostess, Kara.
1:00 pm Lunch. For most of our players, Lunch is a box of Safeway Donuts and
chocolate milk. That's how champion's eat! I'm not kidding.
5:00 pm Poop, Shower and Shave.
6:00 pm Banquet. A dress shirt and tie was mandatory. Socks and sandals were
recommended. Announcements from the CCAA Conveners and let the feast begins.
11:45pm Good night.

Dinner: Buffet Style, All you can eat baby.
Appetizers: Standard bread rolls. Caesar salad with soggy crutons. Horse raddish. Penne pasta. Vinegrette salad. Potato salad.
Entree: Steamed mixed vegetables, cheddar stuffed perogies with bacon, sour
cream and onions, and Prime Rib with gravy.
Dessert: a tray of fresh and sliced cantaloupe, honey dew, watermelon, pineapples, and grapes are served.
Drinks: A delicious fruit punch, coffee, tea, or me, I mean water.
They fed us so well, almost like Kings.

Entertainment: Nadiya is the name of the group of Ukrainian Dancers. They
performed a gypsy dance for us at the Banquet. A very talented bunch of
individuals, and everyone can appreciate the hard work they put into their
performance, since everyone here are High-Performance Athletes.

Award Winners: Terrel as an All-Canadian but unfortunately not the Player of the
Year. Two players from the team we face tomorrow are also all Canadians, the setter and the left side. The coach also won Coach of the Year.

Coach Wayne says we have a good thing going for us tomorrow because:
a. He's seen many coaches win Coach of the Year and lose 1st round of play-offs.
b. We drive a gold van.
c. We're better than them.

---Other Facts About the Day---

The Facility: Grant MacEwan has a PHENOMENAL facility. The building reminds me of Sarumon's Lair from Lord of the Rings. It's huge, modern and state of the art. Not only that, 67% of the population of students at GM are female.

The package: Nationals is sponsored by Mizuno, and the package has some sweet
gear. We receive a Nationals Adidas Jacket, 2 Pairs of Mizuno Sport Socks (MFRP
$15.99), a 5 dollar gift certificate for Hudsons (Bwong, TSkins, and Booby won
$50), an Edmonton Pin, a poster of nationals and a post card. The socks were a huge hit for everyone.

My thoughts:
Being at Nationals, you are treated like a Super Star. Definitly a rare experience to have in your life time if you are fortunate enough to go. I am extremely thankful to be here and it took a lot of sacrifice and hard work to get here. Now, we have the top teams and players from Canada Colleges and are all congregated in one facility to compete for the National Title. There are definitly some nerves going into the first game of nationals. But nerves keep you sharp. All the time you spend in the gym, practicing and perfecting your skills come down to this point in the season. I'm a little nervous. I wonder if Terrel, my roomie, feels the same way. He says, "You already know what to do, there's no time to think about it. Don't think, just do it." It's true, the brain can do wonderous things, and it works better when there's less resistance, such as doubt or fear. Volleyball isn't just bump, set, spike. There are a lot of intangibles. We may not have the best players in the country on the team but if each player does their job, trusts in system, and encourages each other, I think we will be very successful out here in Edmonton.

I hope the Hawks can rely on the support of everyone in Ontario in our path to a National Title.

Thank you Ontario.

Good Night.

--Steven Cheung

Day 3:  Competition Day

Funny thing about life. Things never really turn out the way you expect it too.  

Today was Humber's Quarter Final game against University of British Columbia Okanagan. At the Banquet yesterday, the Humber table and the UBCO tables were next to each other. Some players from the Hawks could hear the trash-talking from the other team. One comment goes as such, "Terrel had 5.9 kpg in the OCAA. I could have had 7 kpg easily because it's Ontario." The culprit, unknown, but that just puts fuel to the fire.  

Now don't get me wrong. I'm the last person to start trash-talking anyone. I'm just reporting to you what goes around. I'm sure some players from the Hawks had mean things to say about the teams from the West.
But hey! They are a great team. Two All Canadians, Nate Speijer and Preston Tucker. A strong supporting cast. CCAA Coach of the Year. They went 17-0 in their regular season. They unfortunately lost in the Finals against Camosun (currently ranked 3).  

Let me tell you, and some people may disagree, but #1 ranked Limoilou better be ready for these guys tomorrow because they are definitely contenders for the National Gold Medal.

With that aside. Today's game was a heart breaker. It was a fight to the very last point. The team competed valiantly, but our inexperience cost us some crucial points. It is a whole array of emotions. The future holds a lot of promise for our young team, but it hurts a lot to not be fighting for a gold medal.

Secondly, and there is no easy way to put it. But today's officiating is under a lot of scrutiny. I respect referees. It's not an easy job! Sure, they make mistakes here and there, but I believe they try to be as fair and unbiased as possible. But today was just HORRENDOUS officiating. Not something I would have expected from a National level match.

Playing all season in the OCAA, the referees were pretty consistent on their ball handling calls. You kind of know what to expect, as to calls the refs make, and what you can and cannot get away with. Any sort of side spin on a ball would be considered a double. One-handed sets are generally a no no and a lift. At Nationals, I expected the referees to be of National Caliber.

The gentlemen we had was inconsistent with his calls and made some poor calls.  Which are, forgivable. Two calls which I must make note of.

1.  In the 4th set, we were up 19-12.  After some intense rallying, Terrel makes a pancake dig. The ball goes up but the ref calls the ball down. It was solely the top refs decision because no linesmen signal their flag. Terrel says , "WTF?!?".  Bam!  Red Card. And there is 10 minute delay for the game. No yellow card. No warning. In my opinion, the ref made a bad call. Understandable. But the red card was WAY over the top. If you make a bad call and get heck for it, you don't need to freak out and dish out red cards.

2.  In the 5th set. 18-17, UBCO to serve. The ball is served in the 5/6 seam and it's long. There are FOUR, linesmen, one for each line. The baseline ref was about to call in, but he changes his decision and it looked like he might have flagged out. He stares at the other linemen for a second and instead he signals that he didn't see it. The head referee decides to rule the ball IN and we lose the game. Whoop-dee-doo. UBCO  run on the court and we're completely confused.  No re-serve?  

I'm sure every player has been screwed over by a ref before. That's life.

I'm not whining or complaining. UBCO played a heck of a game. There has to be one winner and one loser. They even managed to cheer "Humber" at the end of the game. Nate S. served lights out against us and he was very dominant. Terrel officially had 26 points in the game, but if you watch the game for yourself, he may have had an upward of 35-40 points in that game.

Humber played awesome too. Losing the 1st set 25-18, one might think that UBCO would win 3 straight. But we battled it out to the very end. We were down 4-7 in the 5th set. And the team came together, confidently, and pulled through to an 8-7 change around. In fact, we had match point, several times in the set. UBCO was just able to close out in the very end. I personally would have liked to have seen #12 (Nate) or #15 (Terrel) win the game on one of their sick spikes.....  Instead of losing based on ONE man's call.

Did the ref want us to lose? Was it because we're from the East? Was he being biased and fair? Did he discriminate against us? That's for others to speculate.

Nationals still continues tomorrow and Ontario has many games left. We're knocked down, that's for certain. But we will get back up and fight on. University of New Brunswick better be ready.

--Steven Cheung

Day 4... The Rebound

What are the Seawolves?

a) A 1980 war film starring Roger Moore and Gregory Peck.
b) Something that gets eaten up by the Hawks
c) A team that gets shut out
d) All the above
e) None of the above

The correct answer is f) The New Brunswick MVB team that gets beaten, 25-13, 25-16, 25-10 by the Humber Hawks. (That's what they get for cheering for the opposing team during our Quarter Final Match)

Unfortunately, I was incorrect about UBCO giving Limoilou a challenge. Oh well, tomorrow we play at 12pm, and when all goes well, we should play at 5pm. UBCO will be playing Grant MacEwen in the Bronze Semi-Finals. If UBCO wins, we will be having a serious rematch against them in the Bronze Medal game.

There are some nice perks to playing at Nationals. First, every team gets a 24 case of Powerade before each game. Second, each team gets a Booster Juice after the game. A variety of flavours include Funky Monkey, Mango Hurricane, and Strawberry Sunshine. Those are pretty awesome because they are like $7 a drink.

Today we finally were able to visit the Edmonton Mall. If you think Vaughn Mills or Square One are big malls. Edmonton Mall could possibly be as big as both malls put together x 3! Or larger, I really have no clue, except it's gigantic. For example, the mall has an indoor water park with a wave pool and several enormous water slides. It also has a mini-amusement park with several roller coasters. They also had a gun range where you pay 26 dollars to choose between several guns you'd like to use. Ammo is extra $$$. You can bungee down into the water or do some rock climbing or go skating on the ice rink. If good old fashion shopping is your forte, then there is probably 95% of any department stores you can think of is in the mall. Good luck going through every store in one day, let alone 3 hours. It would probably take a couple of days to visit every single store.

Nationals is more than just playing volleyball. It's a great way to visit new places and really bond with your second family. Honestly, after spending 7 months with the boys, I probably spend more time with these guys than I do with my family or other friends. (Sorry guys!) So here's a shout out to everyone back home!

Today was a good way to recover and bounce back from a loss. Tomorrow is a big day, and bringing back some hardware is still the goal.

Thanks for tuning in... You people reading are really wonderful people. Thanks for the support.

--Steven Cheung

Day 5:  The Final Countdown

The tough thing about Nationals is that each game requires 100% effort in order to win the game. Not only do you have to be physically tough to endure all the jumping, hitting, and diving but you also have to be mentally tough and persevere through season long injuries and the stresses of each game. Don't get me wrong, it's so much fun being able to play high-level volleyball but it's very draining. Our therapist Marcello is working overtime to deal with injuries and the team seems to sleep earlier than usual. Without our therapist, some of our bodies wouldn't have made it this far.

Well, this morning, two of our rental vans had their windows smashed open. Nothing was taken, fortunately, but the Gold van had glass everywhere in the passenger's seat. Maybe, a sign of things to come?

We arrive at the gym at 10:30am, to prepare for the Bronze Semi-finals against Camosun (ranked 3rd). We start the game off strong but we were a bit inconsistent. We ended up losing the 1st set 25-27. However, as the Humber Hawks do, we bounced back and won the next three sets pretty convincingly. As usual, Powerades and Booster Juices were provided after the game. This time we had two new flavours, Raspberry Rapture and Tropical Tornado. Mmm.... Delicious healthy goodness.

We take the next couple of hours to rejuvenate and refresh our energy as the 7/8 game goes on at 3pm. Every minute counts as we will be playing at 5pm and we begin our warm up at 4pm. It's vital to restore our energy for the very last game of our 2010 season. Some players stay at the gym and watch the game and some others go back to the hotel to try to re-focus and relax before the big match against UBCO.

Everybody has their own pre-game ritual. Everybody has something different in order to get their mind into game mode. Me personally, the first thing I do is take a hot shower. It's a good place to quickly reflect on life, think about why you play volleyball, thank everyone for the chance to play volleyball, and focus on volleyball. All the other problems, fears, and doubts, seem to melt and wash away with the water. And after the shower, I feel relaxed and ready to go.

Bronze Medal Match. Last game over the year. A chance to make History for Humber to bring back a National Medal. It's time to give it your all. We go down a few points in the first set. UBCO always lead in points in the first set. Whenever we got close, they would turn it on and pull away. Down by three points for most of the set, we ended up losing 22-25. The 2nd set we came out strong battling it out, side-out, side-out. We ended up taking the lead at around 14-12. Probably the biggest lead we had all match. But UBCO just kept pounding back. They never gave us a chance for any breathing room. They put the pedal to the metal and put a lot of pressure on us. Every hit we put over, they would dig it back up, every mistake we made, they would capitalize on, and every weakness we had, they would exploit.  UBCO beat us 3-0.
...

Unbelievable. UBCO brought their A game, played consistently and won.

What more can I say.

Losing is leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

--Steven Cheung

Day 5:  The After Math

The Gold Medal game was very entertaining. By the way, the Bronze Medal and Gold Medal match was on National TV so they had cameras everywhere. After the game, they had the closing ceremonies. Each team sat together in the stands. The top three teams went to the court to receive their medals.

Terrel "BAM-WELL" Bramwell won Tournament 1st team all star and was awarded a plaque. Matthew Issacs, Steven Cheung, Terrel Bramwell, and Paul Kemboi won Players of the Game in different matches. They won a CCAA Long Sleeve and a $25 dollar gift certificate to Hudson's Bar.

After the closing ceremonies, the teams go back to the hotel and get ready for a night of PARTYING. Oil City was the place to be that night. All week, the eight teams were rivals. At the club, it's like all the teams were just long-lost friends. No-line, no-cover. Every teams was cool with each other and it was a fun night of dancing and such. By the way, line dancing is hip in Edmonton. Stuff happened that night ... and What happens in Edmonton stays in Edmonton.

The rentals vans left for the airport at 5:45 am. Our flight departed at 8am. Everybody slept the entire plane ride because most of us didn't sleep that night. The plane touched down at 1:30pm. Toronto is two hours fast plus we had to spring forward the time.
The only person who had his luggage lost was our reporter, Kyle (Kevin) Hall. Poor guy. For the record, he was the best reporter Humber has ever had. He's an ex-varsity player at Waterloo University and he has planted over 1 million trees in his life time. He is a great man. Way to go Kyle.

Nationals. The End.

Closing Remarks

For every player on the Humber Hawks, it was their very first CCAA medal match.  For others, it was their very first Nationals experience. For me, it was my first Nationals.

In the moment after the Bronze Medal Match, silence filled the team room. Pain, anger, sadness. Understandable. Losing sucks. In the grand scheme of things though, it's not a big deal. We still have food to eat, people to love, and volleyball to play.

One loss does not take away from any successes we had during our season. At the beginning of the year, many of us wrote down short-term and long-term goals personally and for the team. Many of us reached and exceeded our goals. This year, this nationals, has set the standard for the following year and years to come. It's not easy to illustrate in this blog, the amazing time and experience the team had at Nationals. I hope you were able to taste a bit of the awesomeness from this adventure and that my team can learn and be even more hungry for a National Championship. I now know what it will take to get to the next level of competition. More time in the gym, more focus in practice. Off-season training will soon begin. Really, for the Humber Hawks, our dream and our team, has just begun.

--Steven Cheung