Savi Davison’s four-month stay in Canada gave her a chance to reconnect with family after quite some time.
After the PLDT High Speed Hitters signed off from the AVC Champions League last April, ace hitter Savi Davison shared that she was set to spend her offseason break in her native Canada.
Davison was fresh off an extended season with PLDT at the time, having played from November last year to April this year, due to a compressed schedule between the 2024-25 PVL All-Filipino Conference and a call-up to carry the flag in the Champions League.
In fact, Davison was unable to take a quick break in Canada during Christmas last year due to her commitments with PLDT. Like any other athlete, chasing her volleyball dreams came at the expense of spending time and witnessing milestones with her loved ones.
So really, it was a no-brainer for Davison to come home once the opportunity presented itself. After all, her family had been doing their best to follow her volleyball career from a long distance, and it was now her time to reciprocate that love back to them.
“My sister’s growing up, my family, people are just getting older, and it’s nice to spend time with them that I can,” Davison told a few reporters after PLDT’s 25-21, 25-21, 25-19 PVL on Tour quarterfinals sweep against the ZUS Coffee Thunderbelles on Thursday, August 7.
“Especially when it’s summer in Canada, and you get to be outside a little bit more and just show people that you love them. I mean, they wake up at 4 to 6 a.m. every day to watch me play back home before they go to work, so just for me to be able to reciprocate that love, it’s a big deal.”
According to Davison, being able to catch up with her family acted as a “mental rest”, and volleyball was more of a second priority during that break.
“I got to just talk about how things used to be, or how things used to be, how things are with the family. It wasn’t so much on me,” Davison shared. “I got to ask questions about my mom, about my sister, how school has been, and stuff like that. So it’s just kind of taking the energy off of me and giving it back.”
Davison has since returned to the Philippines for the PVL on Tour and has been re-integrating herself with a deeper PLDT squad that features a healthier Kianna Dy, Jovie Prado, and a more confident Kiesha Bedonia.
It only took three games for the Toronto native to unleash her lethal form again, going for 28 huge points on a 25-of-50 (50 percent) spiking clip as PLDT booked its PVL on Tour semifinals ticket. If that game was any indicator, it’s that prioritizing rest and family produced a much-recharged and refreshed Savi Davison.
“It’s not even about being in the gym, but even when you’re taken out of the city, you start to breathe a little more, you start to relax. Your blood pressure starts to go down, you know what I mean? You just kind of feel it in the air that you’re kind of leaving somewhere,” Davison continued about her four-month vacation.
“So that, in general, just made me kind of relax and kind of reset. Even though I was in the gym a little bit, it was a different atmosphere, it was a little bit of a change, it was a little bit more light.”
For Davison, her four-month stay in Canada was more than enough to alleviate some of her homesickness. Even for a while, gone was that 8,000-mile distance, along with the half-day time difference between Manila and Toronto.
“So just having that, and obviously having the conversations, to have the time to sit down and talk to somebody and understand what they’re going through. So it’s not a 12-hour time change where I’m going to bed and [my family is] waking up, so it’s nice to just kind of sit in the moment.”
Images courtesy of the Premier Volleyball League.