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| JEFF LOUGHLIN/The Patriot Ledger |
| Fans and thundersticks abound at the women's championship match. |
Volleyball at Marina Bay proves to be a hit
The Patriot Ledger
QUINCY - Holly McPeak has seen the best of times, and the lean years. She has been playing the pro beach game since the first league for women was formed in 1987, enjoyed the game’s peak in the 15- to 17-tournament days through 1997, and endured the valleys - no league at all in ’98, and just a handful of events as recently as 2002. She has seen leagues and events come and go, and until this season, no woman had won more titles or earned more money.
So what’d McPeak think of the “modern” AVP’s first stop at Marina Bay in Quincy?
“Phenomenal,” McPeak said Sunday, watching the matches leading to an upset victory for Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs over the world’s best women’s pairing of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh.
“There’s always a question mark when you come into a city you haven’t been to for a long time, or for a first-time event, but Boston’s answered all our questions. We can’t wait to come back.”
OK, so McPeak, main-event MC/crowd whipper-upper Chris “Geeter” McGee, and anyone else who referred to “Boston” might be reminded that, while that may have been where the bulk of the participants bunked, four days of matches were, in fact, played in Quincy.
But if that’s the biggest complaint that can be made about the AVP’s visit, then the event itself couldn’t have been bad, right?
“What the AVP has done is take it from being a great sport to making it great entertainment. The game is terrific, but look ... even with no match going on, the crowd is electric.”
— Mike Dee
“What the AVP has done is take it from being a great sport to making it great entertainment,” said Mike Dee, president of Fenway Sports Group, which contracted with the AVP to bring the event to Boston, and is already working on plans to bring back more. “The game is terrific, but look ... even with no match going on, the crowd is electric.”
The noontime women’s final was certainly a big, noisy, festive occasion, but those who only used their ticket for the last match, or sat the event out and watched on NBC, only got a fraction of the picture.
Plenty knew better, though: There were lines at the gates at 8 a.m. Sunday - 30 minutes before quarterfinal and semifinal matches kicked off inside the main stadium, and on auxiliary courts behind the grandstand.
“At 8:30 in the morning on a Sunday, there are people in the grandstands - and not just a couple,” said Logan Tom, who lost in the quarterfinals with first-time partner Nancy Mason. “It wasn’t packed that early, but there was a decent amount of people watching, and they kept coming in. I think people were excited about it.”
And that was just Sunday. As early as Thursday’s qualifying tournament, which didn’t require a ticket, action on the six outside courts offered no small amount of drama - lose once, and go home - or excellent volleyball. The story was the same all day Friday and Saturday: A $20 general admission ticket reserved a seat in the stadium, but nothing tied a fan to the grandstand. There were always plenty of high-intensity matches being played, and while seedings certainly give top teams excellent odds of making it to the popular (and televised) later rounds, these players aren’t pampered: Only 30 minutes after winning a tough, three-set match on an outer court Sunday morning, veteran Barb Fontana and Dianne DeNocochea had to be inside the stadium, ready to play second-seeded Branagh and Youngs.
The upset of May-Treanor and Walsh, near-mathematical locks to win the Crocs Cup (the top men’s team of Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser won their eighth title of the season) and odds-on favorites to win Olympic Gold next year in China, was probably a good thing for the tour, and the tour’s visit was a good thing for volleyball on the local level. Visitors streamed to the Yankee Volleyball booth (you can visit them at yankee.org), where the adult crowd learned where it could continue, resume, or start playing, and parents found out about NERVA (nevolleyball.org), which helps get kids started.
“A lot of people have stopped here,” said Samantha, who coaches the men’s and women’s teams at MIT, and also played in her first-ever qualifier on Thursday morning. “There are some older adults who haven’t played before, and are looking for ways to get involved, plus a lot of kids who have graduated from high school and college and say ‘Now, what do I do? I want to keep playing.’”
Sure, it was a shame that soon-to-retire icon Karch Kiraly couldn’t play because of a calf injury, but at least he was there Sunday to accept a rocking chair (pink, like his trademark cap) from the Volleyball Hall of Fame.
Otherwise, nothing was missing at Marina Bay over four days of great competition that featured accessible, engaging athletes (May-Treanor was signing autographs at a booth 40 minutes before the final), plenty of opportunity to eat, drink and be merry (but Quincy police officers polled said little, if any merriment resulted in outright misbehavior), a chance for fans to see some of the world’s best players, and growth opportunities for the sport.
Boston, eat your heart out.
Mike Loftus may be reached at mloftus@ledger.com.
The Patriot Ledger
QUINCY - When he wasn’t busy introducing players, setting up video clips or directing the stadium crowd through multiple-speed versions of The Wave, AVP Master of Ceremonies Chris “Geeter” McGee said it more than once:
“See you in 362 days.”
The return of the AVP Crocs Tour to Marina Bay may not be quite that iron-clad, but those who run the tour and promoted the first Bob’s Stores Boston Open didn’t seem to have much doubt that the tournament will return to Quincy in 2008.
“We sure hope so,” said Mike Dee, president of Fenway Sports Group, which brought pro beach volleyball back to the region for the first time since 1997. “We have a deal with the AVP to bring it back if we can make it work locally.”
Dee, AVP Commissioner Leonard Armato and Bob’s Stores CEO Dave Farrell believe the event has already worked locally once, and beyond all reasonable hopes.
“Fabulous,” Dee said, shouting over between-matches entertainment before Sunday’s nationally-televised women’s final. “It exceeded our expectations. The crowd support, the fans, the energy here - just tremendous.”
Of the Marina Bay site, Dee said: “Ideal. And more than me saying that, the AVP says this is one of the better sites they’ve visited anywhere, and they said this is one of the best crowds they’ve had all year. It’s really terrific here.”
“It’s been a spectacular event,” Armato said. “This is probably the AVP Crocs Tour’s best first-time stop ever. We’re completely excited about our future here.”
What was clear on Sunday was that some sort of agreement (rumored to be for at least two more years), however tentative, has been struck between FSG and the AVP for future tournaments.
“We have a commitment for several more years, anyway,” said Armato, who united struggling men’s and women’s tours in 2001, and has rebuilt it from a seven-event schedule in ’02 to this year’s 18. “We’re going to make it bigger and better next year. We have great partners in the Fenway Sports Group. Their group and our group are going to sit down and brainstorm about how to take this event to another level for the future.”
Dee, too, indicated that FSG wouldn’t be out of contact with the AVP for long, if at all.
“Our feeling is that this was an enormous success,” he said. “Anecdotally, we’ve heard people saying they hope it comes back.
“We’ll sit down, do a summary and a review ... We want to make a decision as quickly as possible that we can come back.”
Dee’s group had to work out logistical concerns with Quincy officials, state and city police, and Marina Bay residents and businesses, among other groups, in a relatively short time frame. (FSG didn’t announce the tournament was coming until June 13.) Those groups will likely be revisited before a determination on 2008 is made official, but Dee is already looking to changes that can be made.
“There’s a lot more opportunity to sell tickets in advance,” he said. “We were kind of late this year, so we want to be out in front of that next year.
“And there was a lot more interest on the auxiliary courts than we anticipated. That was principally all standing room, so next year we’re talking - if we’re able to come back - about putting some more stands over there.”
“But other than that, there’s not a whole lot we would change. Parking, the operations, traffic flow and the city were all just tremendous.”
Attendance figures weren’t released, but crowds were healthy beginning with Friday’s first main-draw matches, and seats and suites in the main stadium were filled by about 4,000 noisy, interested fans in time for Sunday’s NBC broadcast.
Farrell stopped short of committing Bob’s Stores as a title sponsor in 2008, but certainly wasn’t turned off to the idea as he watched the run-up to the women’s finale.
Mike Loftus may be reached at mloftus@ledger.com.