USAV slips one past us

Did anyone else notice this? USAVolleyball.org posted a story on February 22 that seemed like just your run-of-the-mill announcement of changes to Junior Olympics Lite, aka the invitational tournament.

But those changes are nothing if not tantalizing. One, the invitational is being opened to teams outside the U.S. The press release only mentions Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, so it doesn't appear that the Dutch will be sending a contingency anytime soon.

Also new for this year is the stipulation that a team may play in BOTH the standard Junior Olympics and the invitational. So why would a team that qualified for JOs want to play in the invitational? I imagine the USAV thinks that the lure of playing international competition may be enough to bring teams.

Why would international teams come here to play in JOs Lite? At first, they may not come in droves, but you can foresee a day when the stronger teams start to come if they know they can play Mizuno Long Beach, Sports Performance, and the like.

Of course, allowing international teams to come means -- potentially -- more teams in the invite. But, what if...

What if one day the top teams decide it's more prestigious to play in the newly international invite instead of JOs? Is there the chance that Front Range skips JOs to save their energy for the invite? Will that lessen the prestige associated with a JOs title?

"Well, you won 16 Open, but Golden West wasn't there."

...that's all I got. Not a whole heckuva lot going on right now, and I kinda got all Mike Wallace for a moment.