Hawaii Five 0-2: that’s the line on the Dinos men’s volleyball team after a weird weekend series against Manitoba. The Dinos continued their futility in their first game back from the holiday break against the Canada West powerhouse Bisons, who despite their obvious disregard for good grammar (who’s their rival, the octopuses?) looked like a team that is ready to make a comeback to the top of the CIS ranks.
And speaking of comebacks, the “buttery Russian” is back. CIS Player of the Year Denis Zhukov returned to action over the weekend, and drew quite an ovation from the Friday night crowd when he was introduced. Denis looked good, but not quite as dominant as the Dinos need him to be, especially with their two top kill leaders from the first half, Scott Thomas and Andy Holland, watching from the sidelines in Head Coach Greg Ryan’s new line-up. At 3-9 in conference play, the Dinos are going to need some help from other teams to even make playoffs, and it’s only January.
In other comeback news, libero Kelly Cherniwchan returned to the line-up, presumably with full vision restored to his injured eye. Unfortunately, the Dinos are now waiting on another player to return.
Steve Brand, aka “Slim Brandy,” was in Hawaii over the holidays with his wife, and somehow, though the details I got were sketchy, he suffered a punctured or collapsed lung.
Steve is okay, but cannot fly because the pressure change at altitude could be fatal. On the plus side, he’s in Hawaii, and rumour has it his health insurance is paying handsomely for him to stay as long as he has to.
Unfortunately for the Dinos, tough luck continued to follow them as they dropped two more matches to the U of A Golden Bears. Maybe there was something in the water that tainted both Calgary teams over the weekend?