By Kyle Tucker

The women of Team Canada don't know what's waiting for them when they step off their plane this morning. No one has told them of their royal greeting. They may think they've been rerouted to the latest reality romance show.

A man in a tuxedo will stand waiting, holding not a rose, but a soccer ball. He will whisk them away in a stretch limousine to their beachfront accommodations.

It isn't television, though. It's all part of the North American Sand Soccer Championships, a booming tournament, showcasing a relatively new sport, invading Virginia Beach for the next three days.

"It's a lot of glitz," said Dick Whalen, director of the event.

Whalen said all of the 12 Pro-Am men's teams traveling from afar, as well as the two women's national teams, will be ushered in by these long, ritzy rides.

The men will compete for $15,000 in prize money.

This is what the event has become, a 14-block beach party drawing as many people as most Major League Baseball games.

What started a decade ago with 26 teams has steadily evolved and eventually exploded into the biggest sand soccer event in the world. This year's field features more than 6,000 athletes on 618 squads from 18 states, the District of Columbia and Canada.

The Canadians are coming down to play in the first women's international sand soccer competition, a showdown between the newly assembled U.S. and Canadian national teams. They will play a three-game Atlantic Challenge, with matches tonight at 6, Saturday at noon and Sunday at 11 a.m., all in a large beach stadium erected at 7th Street especially for the event.

It's an innovative undertaking. But that's typical of this sand soccer phenomenon, this year featuring 48 age divisions from novices to pros, blanketing 1.25 miles of beach.

"The Virginia Beach event is the worldwide turning point now for women's beach soccer," Canadian coach Christian Prevost said. "The next years will show it."

Whalen thinks the next years will grow it, too. He has no reason to believe otherwise. His event has gotten bigger every year, with girls picking up sand soccer at a quicker clip than anyone.

People see the game, Whalen said, and are intrigued. They try it, and they're hooked. He has a simple explanation.

"First, it's an exciting new sport played in a beach setting," he said. "It's a dynamite setting. And sand soccer has a lot more goals than conventional soccer."

Played on fields 25 yards wide and 35 yards long (30-by-40 for the pros), with five-on-five teams, the rules of sand soccer are conducive to scoring. And after half an hour or so of kicking sand and filling the net, there's plenty to cool down with. In a festival atmosphere, there will be music, amusement and lots of food. Plus, the obvious, but perhaps most attractive amenity for the 20,000 people expected to flood the beach this weekend.

"When you're done playing the game, you can just take a dip in the ocean," Whalen said. "It's just nonstop bodies having fun."