Skip to content

Volleybash attracts huge turnout

Parksville has become a mecca for beach volleyball.
13438956_web1_tongue
Michael Briones photo Gracie May stretches her arms to make a dig pass to partner Sara Ostojic during the 2018 Volleybash at the Parksville Community Park over the weekend.

Parksville has become a mecca for beach volleyball.

For three days last week, players from all ages and skill levels came from all over British Columbia, United States, Croatia and Brazil to play in the popular 2018 Volleybash. There were 61 teams in the triples competition and 89 teams in the doubles competition.

“We are super pleased with how things turned out,” said Shane Hyde, who organized the tournament through Oceanside Outdoor Sports. “The calibre of volleyball was incredible,”

This is the 28th anniversary of Volleybash, which this year partnered with Volleyball BC that helped raised the interest of this year’s event even more.

“We are coming close to capacity,” said Hyde, who is going to be in his 18th year coach the Vancouver Island University women’s volleyball team. “We can be creative with the way we play them through but it will get to a point where we can’t play them anymore.

“We do have a little bit more space on the far side where the sandcastles are which we had used in the past. It’s great to see the numbers grow. This is one of the reasons why I brought on Volleyball BC because I felt it was starting to get harder and harder to keep it alive. And I didn’t want things to die off. Bringing Volleyball BC on adds to the promotional side of things, social media, everything. Now our numbers are back up.”

The tournament drew collegiate and university players preparing for the coming season. The event also featured a parachuting display.

“Skydivers from Skydiving Vancouver Island came and landed right on the feature court. They gave away a free sky dive for everybody that three a paper plate and landed on paper plate. It was an awesome experience. We also had shaw cable here televising the event.”

Hyde said beach volleyball in Parksville has grown in almost the last three decades.

“We’ve hosted some huge tournaments with the high school where we got around 150 teams in one day,” Hyde said. “The league that we hold that plays every Tuesday and Wednesday have over a hundred teams each night. Literally these courts are being used non-stop. Every age uses these courts. Every skill levels uses these courts so we’re really pleased to have these facility in parksville and put parksville on the map.”

This year, all proceeds go to support the women’s national volleyball team.



Michael Briones

About the Author: Michael Briones

I rejoined the PQB News team in April 2017 from the Comox Valley Echo, having previously covered sports for The NEWS in 1997.
Read more