Throwback!

Dodgeball is making a comeback in Northern Colorado.

While the game has been booted out of most elementary schools, adults who grew up on dodgeball are bringing it back. Winter dodgeball leagues are now featured on Windsor, Greeley and Evans parks and recreation offerings.
?We started it this past fall,? said Greeley Recreation Department?s Jaydine Rendall. ?We envisioned it as being for the 20-something age group. It has actually drawn an older age group. I guess our biggest surprise is the number of families that have come out.?
Mostly men play in Greeley?s co-ed dodgeball leagues. ?The wives and kids are on the sidelines cheering. It?s been a lot of fun.?
Registration for winter dodgeball leagues in Greeley begins Jan. 5. League play begins Feb. 11. The cost is $75 per teams and teams are co-ed.
Dodgeball has been fun and popular in Windsor, as well, said Tara Quinn, recreation supervisor for Windsor Parks and Recreation. ?It?s like a craze going on.?
In Windsor, adult dodgeball league play begins Jan. 9 for co-ed teams. Registration is $50 per team. x09x09x09x09
Dodgeball joins a more traditional roster of winter sports leagues around Northern Colorado that consists mainly of basketball, volleyball, in-line hockey and ice hockey.
Around the region, basketball tops the list of most popular league sports activities for both adults and children. That?s likely only because folks just can?t quite play softball year-around here, say municipal recreation coordinators.
Most Northern Colorado softball leagues begin in March. Play typically ends in late October.
For adults, softball is definitely the most popular league sport, said Carol Fahring at Fort Collins Parks and Recreation. ?We have something like 300-some teams for softball. For basketball we probably only have 40 teams.?
?We used to have a huge volleyball turnout,? Fahring added. ?But not as big as softball.?
Adult basketball begins in Fort Collins in January. The city parks and recreation department offer leagues for men and women, but not co-ed basketball. Girls? basketball in Fort Collins ended in early December. Boys in fourth- through ninth-grade take to the boards in late January.x09
Late March in Fort Collins brings co-ed volleyball for youth in seventh- through ninth-grades. A spring flag football league for children in the third- through sixth-grades begins in March or April.
?All of this will be advertised in the Winter-Spring Recreator,? Fahring said, referring to the city?s seasonal catalog of parks and recreation offerings that appears Dec. 28.
If slippin? and slidin? is your cup of winter sports tea, Fort Collins and Windsor offer competitive and recreational hockey league play for youth and adults.
Two ice rinks at Edora Pool Ice Center in Fort Collins operate daily from about 5:30 a.m. until at least midnight. Stick-and-puck sports share the ice with free-skating times and figure skating classes and activities.
Northern Colorado Youth Hockey, Fort Collins Adult Hockey and several women?s hockey organizations run leagues at EPIC. Check with the individual leagues or take a look at the Recreator for more information.
At Windsor?s Providence Ice Centre, a 20-week-long season of recreational and competitive youth hockey begins in September.
Look for another kind of hockey ? without ice ? at ODs Sports Crossing in Fort Collins. In-line hockey leagues for adults and children run every nine weeks year-round, said Joe Hartman, hockey director. The next winter session begins January 3.
In-line hockey is popular in Northern Colorado, Hartman said. ?We have 400 youth players in the various programs we offer and anywhere between 40 to 50 adult teams at any given time of the year. Each of those teams averages about 10 players.?
October through April, indoor in-line hockey at OD?s makes room for indoor soccer, flag-football and lacrosse. One of two indoor rinks at the south Fort Collins sports center is covered with artificial turf to accommodate the indoor versions of these sports.
Elsewhere in Northern Colorado, in addition to dodgeball, Windsor Parks and Recreation offers youth and adult basketball leagues during the winter.
Youth basketball for boys and girls in kindergarten through the eighth-grade began in November and will continue through March. Adult basketball leagues tip off in early January in Windsor with league play on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Youth basketball leagues, dodgeball and drop-in volleyball and basketball are new offerings in Windsor made possible by the opening in September of the new Windsor Community Recreation Center, Quinn said. The center has a gym, multipurpose room, classrooms, conference room, fitness room and activity area.
In Greeley, too, there?s more than just dodgeball to keep people from becoming one with their couches over the cold winter months. Youngsters can enjoy in-line hockey for ages 8 to 13, youth soccer for ages 4 to 13 and volleyball for fourth- through seventh-graders. Registration for all of these begins in late January or early February with practices beginning in March.
Basketball is big in Greeley, said Rendall, who is marketing coordinator for the Greeley Recreation Department. ?We have really vibrant basketball leagues for both kids and adults. These began in November and will continue through January.
Winter volleyball is on now, too, in Greeley and is also very popular, Rendall said. ?Volleyball tends to be year-round here. We do it indoors when the weather is bad, then we run summer leagues and tournaments out on the grass all summer.?
Soon enough, softball begins. ?We call it summer softball because we start it in March,? Rendall joked. ?They get out there as soon as there is any hope of there not being any snow on the ground and they play until mid-October … We have very dedicated volleyball and softball players.?
Like their neighbors elsewhere in Northern Colorado, Lovelanders love basketball and volleyball for wintertime sports leagues. Winter basketball for men, women and children begins in early January in Loveland. Winter volleyball leagues for men, women and co-ed teams begin at the same time.
March in Loveland brings in-line hockey leagues for youth players and soccer for kindergarten through the sixth-grade.

rendezvous

? Fort Collins Parks and Recreation, (970) 221-6640
? Edora Pool Ice Center, (970) 221-6683
? Greeley Recreation Department, (970) 350-9400
? Loveland Parks and Recreation, (970) 962-2445
? OD?s Sports Crossing, (970) 282-1112
? Providence Ice Centre, (970) 206-4423×09
? Windsor Parks and Recreation, (970) 674-3500

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