In the beginning…
All the way back in the 80's, there was an annual Fourth of July tournament in Fraser, Colorado....the Never Summer Doubles Tournament. This tournament disappeared in the 90's and the grass and two beach courts outside of town have not seen much play the last 20 years. In 2015, Volleyball of the Rockies started crunching the numbers and found that the three mountain tournaments they host were running out of room. So it made sense to look into adding another event in the mountains and Fraser Valley is the perfect fit. They also found that there were 100's of teams that played Mountain Tourneys close to Denver that were not driving to the more distant events like Snowmass. With an eye to keeping a couple weeks between events and with no major tournament in the front range on the best weekend of the year......the VOTR Crew decided to fill Fraser Valley with nets on Labor Day weekend.
There was enough grass to accommodate the tournament and all in ONE location/complex. On the other hand the two sand courts needed love and to make matters worse, one of them was removed to allow a ropes course to be added to the park. So VOTR met with the Fraser Valley Recreation District and successfully identified a vacant parcel adjacent to the Recreation Center where they agreed to build 4 new beach courts (Completion TBD). So the stage is set for yet another great Colorado Mountain Tournament and we are looking forward to our first year of Fraser Valley Doubles. The grass is green and ready to go and we are working to have the new court built by mid-August.
Like all Colorado Tournaments, sand space will be limited so we will cap sand divisions, but with 5 courts and 3 days, we should be able to accommodate up to 40 teams per gender. The great news for grass divisions is we'll get well over 100 courts all in one location, with that Fraser Valley Doubles will be able to accommodate over 600 teams of grass in the traditional VOTR formats (one day tourney, 6 team pools on 2 nets).
Fraser Valley Doubles may be the newest volleyball tournament in the state, but it promises to grow in to a wonderful finish to each years' summer of competition.