Originally, the Central Alberta Kings Volleyball Club was fully associated with the RDP Kings.
Kings head coach Keith Hansen was instrumental in starting the club, with the help of the likes of Richard Schick, Good Inglis and Pat McFeely.
“It was run out of the college and used their old uniforms, everything like that,” said former RDC Kings star setter and present-day CAKVC president Terence McMullen.
That has changed over the years as the club has become a self-contained entity, but that doesn’t mean the college team doesn’t have a strong influence on the younger kids.
The Kings, who have six Central Alberta athletes on their roster, captured their 14th national title this season.
“The success of the college team and what Aaron (Schulha) and his team has done keeps volleyball in the forefront,” said McMullen.
“The kids see what they can accomplish, see where they can go in the sport.”
The RDP Kings were led by Colby Hemeth and Brett Lower out of Lindsey Thurber and Owen Langberg of Rocky Mountain House who attended Hunting Hills.
Nemeth was the ACAC South Division player of the year, an All-Canadian and MVP at the Nationals, where the Kings swept all three of their matches. Lower and Langberg were both named to the first All-Star team at the CCAA championships.
Backup setter Drew Dykstra of Bentley and CACHS, backup libero Ty Flemming of Notre Dame and middle Liam Hart of Olds played an important role for the Kings.
And beyond that, setter Luke Weddell, who came out of LTCHS and the club program, is now starting for the University of Alberta Golden Bears.
“We have a solid group of kids who have played, and are playing, at the post-secondary level and we try to bring them back to help out at camps, just try to keep them involved,” said McMullen.
“That cycle is important, just to get more kids people recognized. Aaron has that as does Talbot (Walton) and the Queens. There’s a ton of Red Deer kids who recognize them and who inspire them.
The kids look at the Club as a way to build their skills, indicated McMullen, adding it’s just not the college teams that benefit from the CAKVC.
“It helps develop the kids to play for our program (at LTCHS) and the other high school teams,” he said.
The Kings club also maintains their connection with RDP, giving scholarships to any players who go on to play for the Kings.
“They get some money if they played for the club and make the Kings,” he said.
The CAKVC has 12 teams ranging from U13 to U18.
“We used to have two or three teams but now we have 12. We’re a certified non-profit with five members on the board.”
The CAKVC has one team at the U13 level, three at U14 and U15, two at U16 and U17 and one at U18.
“Last year we had three smaller U13 teams, but usually we have 10-12 teams overall,” said McMullen, who is in his third year on the board and second as president.
He also coaches two teams — the U15 Green team and U13 team.
Terence believes the club is almost at the max when it comes to the number of teams.
It’s about as big as they can get.
“How big we can get is based on the availability of coaches and gym time,” he said. “Right now, we have 12, and it would be tough to make it work with many more teams, especially combined with the Queens (CAQVC) and other things going on. In fact it gets tougher and tougher all the time.
“We’re lucky to have the facilities we have, but we definitely could use more.”
There are 30 teams combined in the two club programs, plus the basketball club is also growing.
“It’s growing as well and hopefully one day you see that resurgence as well in kids playing basketball,” said McMullen.
As well the Kings club, like the Queens, are always looking for more coaches.
“We’re always looking for the best coaches we can find. We’re fortunate to be in Red Deer as it’s a big volleyball centre and there’s a lot of interest and talent, which brings out really good coaches,” McMullen added.
Outside of individuals in the area, who are qualified coaches, there is also a number of Kings and Queens, from RDP, who have joined the coaching ranks.
Red Deer is a strong volleyball area, something Volleyball Alberta has known and is taking more and more advantage of, using the facilities available to run Premier tournaments almost every weekend.
“People like coming here,” said McMullen, “Grande Prairie would rather come here than to travel to Calgary and Lethbridge likes coming here rather than going to Edmonton.”
Red Deer is hosting the U16 boys third premier tournament this weekend.
There will be a number of provincial tournaments down the road with the U13 boys and U18 girls on April 12-13, the U14 boys on April 26-17 and the U18 boys on May 3-4.
The Kings U17 team is one of the premier teams in the country.
They finished fourth at the Nationals last year and third the year before. They won back-to-back provincial titles and are ranked at the top again this year.
Danny Rode is a retired Advocate reporter and member of the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame who can be reached at danrode@shaw.ca
