01/30/2022
Thursday January 30, 2020.
2 years ago today was the last day that our indoor beach facility at 15 Leswyn was open.
It was our final league playoff. I still vividly remember the feeling. People were both festive and sad. Everyone present was happy to be a part of a special community and to be in attendance for it’s goodbye, but unsure what might replace it for each of us.
All through that final week, many former customers, mainly ex league players, showed up to have a last glimpse. So many friendships and memories had originated inside those 4 walls since our birth in late 1997.
I had spent my working life running Beach Blast since 1998. I was responsible for almost all our programming: Leagues, Tournaments, Clinics, Camps, Special Corporate Events & Fundraisers, Kids birthday parties. I loved organizing these events and participating in many of them. I played in 50% of the Beach Blast lndoor Leagues (Mon & Thurs at 7 and 9pm) for at least the last 15 years.
The monthly Beach Blitz tournaments started in 2003 and I missed playing in 3 in all those years. I have met literally thousands of customers, developed friendships with many and was fortunate to see hundreds of them on the courts weekly for years. Seeing our customers create and grow their relationships and friendships made the community feeling extremely special.
It was like the realities of the outside world didn’t exist within our walls while you were in the building and that peacefulness and positive vibe could go with you when you stepped outside.
Few people (not me for sure) could have predicted what was to happen to the global community starting in March 2020. Covid restrictions shuttered many businesses in mid March. Originally, the duration of the shutdown was supposed to be a few weeks. In reality, if we had stayed in business we would have closed and not been able to open again until September 2020 and then we would have been paused again for months shortly after.
During the spring & summer of 2020, the adult beach volleyball community shifted to Woodbine Beach/ Ashbridges Bay and enjoyed their usual outdoor play. The committed volleyballers played throughout the Fall and the diehards continued right thru the winter. Groups even set up lights on a few courts to play into the evening. I would often walk my dogs at the beach and only on the coldest and windiest days were no nets up. Many players inquired if Beach Blast 2.0 was on the horizon. Unfortunately, it was not. Ironically, the pandemic had made our Industrial/Warehouse type of building even more desirable and real estate prices kept rising in the GTA. We left Leswyn because our building had been sold in July 2019 and a termination clause in our lease triggered. Only 11 months after our departure, in November 2020, 15 Leswyn sold again, for a hefty profit, in the midst of a global pandemic.
Leaving Leswyn wasn’t the end of the Beach Blast story though:
Since January 2021, we were lucky to have been able to start a few things:
In February 2020, we rented Saturday afternoons at the indoor beach courts at Downsview Park that Volleyball Canada operates. Our first league started in Feb 2020 and ran for 2 weeks before lockdown.
In the summer of 2020 our outdoor Ashbridges Bay Beach Volleyball league had a brief August-September season on 10 courts instead of the usual 100.
We tried again with Saturday indoor leagues in Fall of 2020 and that got paused after 2 weeks, turned out to be a full year before they would restart.
In April 2021, we joined the world in pivoting and moved to Indoor Hard Court Volleyball. Our new venue called the Toronto Volleyball Centre started during a lockdown and the first customers played in late July. The Fall was very busy as school permits weren’t readily available but people wanted to play. Youth & Adults filled these two courts and I could see the joy on peoples faces as they returned to some form of normal. For many they hadn’t played indoor volleyball in 18 months or more.
In September 2021, we began our Saturday afternoon Fall Indoor Beach Leagues at Downsview Park, a full year since we stopped. It’s a small group with only 3 courts, but the community vibe is still running strong, even if we get tired faster!
We reopen our indoor courts tomorrow after this latest month long shutdown and volleyball life resumes.
I still miss the Beach Blast at Leswyn experience very often, but as I imagined, the connections that people made over those 22 years were deep and people adapted & found a way to keep making volleyball memories.
Stay Healthy everyone.
Josh
These photos were sent to me by some long time customers, it's nice to know I am not alone in missing this special place.
