Joey Payeur
Whether is was TSN or APTN, national TV audiences got plenty of chances to get to know Amy Wilson-Hands up close and personal.
The head coach of the Fort Frances Fire ‘n Ice club volleyball program closed out a 47-day stretch away from home by serving as an apprentice coach for Team Ontario’s female indoor volleyball squad at the Canada Summer Games, which wrapped up Sunday in Winnipeg.
Ontario started strong with a 4-0 record in Group ‘C’ but then lost three of their last four matches, including the semi-final and the bronze-medal match, to wind up in fourth place.
“Overall, the team played exceptionally well and met all the objectives that the coaches set prior to training and competition,” Wilson-Hands noted.
The squad didn’t drop a set in those first four wins over the Northwest Territories, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec.
“We felt like we were accomplishing what we were there to do,” said Wilson-Hands, who also was the head coach for Ontario’s 16U female squad at the North American Indigenous Games last month in Toronto.
“The girls were well-prepared for what the Canada Summer Games were all about, and the coaching staff was staying up really late scouting the other teams and getting ready for each match,” she noted.
Ontario looked ready to go 5-0 when it won the first set against Alberta.
But the tide turned in the second set as the Prairie powerhouse handed Ontario its first set loss, and then two more to take the best-of-five match 3-1 (20-25, 25-21, 25-18, and 25-19).
“All the western Canadian teams are great at ball control,” Wilson-Hands said.
“There was nobody on Alberta that was super tall or athletic, but they turned it up in the second set,” she added.
“Whatever we threw at them in our hitting style, they were ready for.”
A second-place finish in group play set up a quarter-final showdown against third-place Saskatchewan from Group ‘D’ in a match that was broadcast on TSN.
“From Day 1, [Ontario head coach] Richard Eadie kept the team’s schedule consistently the same and emphasized that we were here to play volleyball,” Wilson-Hands remarked.
“Going into the TSN game, sure, the girls were nervous,” she admitted.
“But many of the girls are probably going onto the national level and they have learned along the way to tune out the chirping on the sidelines during matches, so tuning out the TV cameras was not that hard for them.”
Ontario took a close first set against Saskatchewan, then built their momentum from there en route to a 3-0 win (25-23, 25-19, and 25-17).
Waiting in the wings for the semi-final was the hometown favourites as a jam-packed crowd of about 5,000 filled the Investors Group Centre to cheer on Manitoba.
“I can only imagine the adrenalin rush Team Manitoba must have felt walking into that scene,” said Wilson-Hands.
“We knew it was going to be a tough one for us but we also knew the girls were capable of winning,” she added.
The teams split the first two sets, with every time-out sparking the Manitoba fans to raise the roof for the duration.
“It was surreal,” Wilson-Hands marvelled. “It felt like I was at the Olympics.
“It was loud, intense and amazing.”
Wilson-Hands said the momentum changed on one crucial play in the third set.
“We pulled off a block and it landed in, but it was called out,” she noted.
“It was a bit of a deflation for our team.”
Manitoba wound up winning the set, then prevailed in “overtime” in the fourth one for the 3-1 victory (25-19, 22-25, 25-17, and 26-24).
“They really wanted it,” Wilson-Hands said of Manitoba. “Nothing fell to the floor without them working hard to get it.
“[But] our girls battled and I’m proud of them.”
With a medal still up for grabs, Ontario met New Brunswick again in the bronze-medal final–but it was a far different Maritimes squad ready to go to war.
“New Brunswick came into the Games maybe overlooked and not a lot of people took them as a strong team,” Wilson-Hands said.
“They play what we call East Coast defence,” she noted. “They’re ballers. Nothing hits the ground.
“It had been [32] years since they took home a medal in women’s volleyball.”
The two teams were even through four sets before New Brunswick took the fifth-and-deciding one for the 3-2 triumph (26-24, 22-25, 25-14, 19-25, and 15-13).
“It is what it is,” Wilson-Hands shrugged.
“If it wasn’t going to be us, I’m extremely happy that New Brunswick was able to get it.”
Earlier in the week, Wilson-Hands was contacted by APTN reporter Brittany Hobson about doing an interview for a piece focusing on the nationwide apprentice program that targeted First Nations’ coaches.
“It was a bit intimidating but I wanted to get my story out there,” she remarked.
“It’s a pretty big deal to me, as an indigenous woman, to be part of this and my hope is it will spark someone in Canada to see that we’ve done this and they can do it, too.”
Wilson-Hands also had the chance to take part in a clinic overseen by former Canadian men’s team head coach Glenn Hoag.
“Just to sit down and talk with him about coaching, who better to learn from than someone with 10 years on the national team’s bench?” she mused.
Her approach to coaching the sport has changed dramatically since Wilson-Hands began her apprentice coaching stint last summer.
“The interesting thing about spending two summers away doing this is that I’ve actually learned how to play the sport,” she said.
“Before the apprenticeship, I knew how to teach players how to pass and set,” she noted.
“But now I know how to get kids into the right systems, how to get attackers to change their shots, how to jump float serve with velocity.
“In five years, it’s going to be a completely different region here,” Wilson-Hands predicted.
“I know we’re going to have kids from around her be on provincial teams and continue on to play at university.
“And I hope one day, we’ll have a kid from Northwestern Ontario be on a national team.”
