HOPE Volleyball Summerfest 2007

P1060027
Originally uploaded by palm0014

Waking up bright and early on Saturday morning, I was the first to hop in the shower to get me in the spirit of HOPE Volleyball Summerfest!

“HOPE is a volunteer-driven, not-for-profit events management organization that raises funds for community-based charities. Inspired by Terry Fox’s run across Canada, in 1981 a group of friends in Ottawa founded HOPE to make a difference in their community.”

We try and put a couple of teams in every year to take part in this charitable (and fun!) event. I would have to say that the HOPE Volleyball tournament is my favourite part of the summer. They have the 4 Bs – beaches, bikinis, beer and bands. What more could I ask for?

We headed over but showed up to our court just in time for them to call the end of the game! We got stuck in a security lineup on the way in which made us miss our first game. The games only run 12 minutes (or up to 21 points, whichever comes first) so it doesn’t equal a large amount of time.

We meandered around a few other courts…there are literally hundreds of courts out on the beach and lawn area. After losing our second game, we decided it was due time to check out the beer gardens. There was a lot of confusion getting to the beer garden. First of all, we stood in this MASSIVE lineup until I thought “I should check with someone official to see if this is the right lineup.” Sure enough, we were in the wrong lineup as we were heading into a small beer garden managed by the local radio station. This was NOT the beer garden we were looking for, but it was close to the volleyball area, hence the reason for confusion.

Then on our way there, we saw another lineup which had a sign up stating Beer Stamps and Wristbands. Well…we already had our wristbands but we didn’t have a stamp on our hand to get into the beer garden. We thought this was odd as it was nowhere near the beer garden. After waiting in line for a bit, I ran out to ask if we could just get a stamp at the beer garden. Success! PLUS, there was no lineup when we got to the garden. Suckas. Case in point – it pays to go to the beginning of the line to see what’s REALLY going on.

After eating some awful awful burgers and hot dogs (courtesy of the festival), we watched Donkeypunch and LoudLove and then headed back for another game (which I think we won? I can’t really recall now…I know we lost two and won two.)

The weather was not co-operating with us yesterday as it was always cloudy and near the end of the day it started raining on us. Everyone was in a good mood though and some of us escaped with a mild sunburn.

I got to see most of Mobile’s set, the first song from Matty Mays + El Torpedo’s set and Finger Eleven’s set. I was very excited to see Mobile as I dig them. Their first album – Tomorrow Starts Today – has been in my car for the past two years. It has a lot of staying power. They remind me of U2.

We then ended the day by heading back to Carrie’s place where I crashed for a few hours, woke up to find everyone heading to bed, so I headed back to bed also. An excellent time for HOPE Volleyball and I hope all the new people (Krista, Amy, Marcus, Chris) enjoyed it so much that they return next year!

Highlights:

• Sven ‘Germanating’ everyone in sight. This involves painting the German flag on people’s faces (or other parts of the body)
• Krista’s first time inside an unruly rock crowd. I had never realized she had never been in there before. I ended up getting a kick to th head by some guy crowd-surfing and she had the look on her face as if to say “What are we inside?!”. We quickly left after that as I would rather keep my head than to fight up some mob.
• Wearing my Kapuskasing District High School ‘Kolts’ t-shirt AND having it recognized! Turns out that some guys from Timmins were there. I promptly told them that I wouldn’t talk to them anymore as they were clearly not from the superior community.
• Rolling down the hill at the end of the day
• Dude in Speedo. ‘Nuff Said.

iplaying: I Heard It Through the Grapevine – CCR (Chronicle Vol. 1)