Once the sports world opens up again, there will be a new volleyball club to tangle with.

Nolan Weinmaster is one of the driving forces behind the Briecrest Volleyball Club, that will look to develop players with advanced training.

Weinmaster said there was a need to fill and a facility in which to do that.

“We’re planning to offer four teams per gender,” he said. “And really just based out of the need that’s in the area, and just our desire too to serve the community and get more established as a club program as well.”

While registration would have closed this past month, it's been extended into January, with tryouts on the first two weekends in January. The latest round of COVID-19 restrictions have forced the postponement of the tryouts but their hope is to run the tryouts in 2021 on the Jan. 8-9 and Jan. 15-16 weekends, and to that end, they’ve extended the registration through until Jan. 4.

“We’re planning to offer teams in different age groups… for both the boys and girls side, possibly expanding into (age) 14 and under depending on what the numbers are like in the other age groups. Our space is somewhat limited, and so we do want to be able to offer two to three training sessions each week for each team.”

Kristy Abbott will be in charge of the girls' programs, and Natalie Mullen will be handling the boys' programs. Other coaches from the community will provide a hand as well, as well as some of the Briercrest College players.

“There’s a little bit more opportunity for them this year with us not having games or as many opportunities for competition, we wanted to give our players a chance to use their time to invest back into some of the younger players in the area, so they’ll be working as assistant coaches for each team,” said Weinmaster. “Players get to benefit from their expertise and the mentorship from current college players too.”

Players must be not only within a 150 km radius of Caronport, but they also can’t cross over a major centre like Moose Jaw in order to take part, according to Saskatchewan Volleyball rules. They could be from Moose Jaw, but not from Regina despite Regina being within a 150 km radius.

To register or to find out more information, head to gobriercrest.ca/information/volleyballclub