Ahren used to have the nickname of " The Kid" back in the '90's when he was first playing on the Canadian circuit. Now that he is 33 years old and has played professionally for over ten years, the moniker isn't quite as appropriate.

However, yesterday at the FIVB event site in Zagreb, the event organizers asked Ahren and I if we could run a volleyball clinic for a bunch of youngsters. Since we know the promotor fairly well, and we had some extra time in the afternoon, we agreed to help out.

We arrived at the court to see about 40 kids (aged 5 - 12) running around one of the outside courts. We knew it would be a bit challenge to run an hour long clinic for that age group, but little did I know that we had a secret weapon!

The "kid" in Ahren certainly showed itself early, as several of the younger kids seemed to flock to him. I immediately saw the solution to the problem: I assigned all the young ones to Ahren for him to entertain while I ran a volleyball clinic for the older ones.

I glanced over once in a while at Ahren's group to see him in action. He had them playing every game under the sun - even resorting to hot potato with the volleyball to keep them happy. Who knew that he was so good with the little ones?

The nickname could make a comeback.