When it's cold outside, you can bring the beach inside with the sport of volleyball.

The AVP Crocs Hot Winter Nights beach volleyball tour makes three stops in Wisconsin in January.

On Jan. 17, the tour will be at the Bradley Center at 7 p.m. It will then head out state with a stop at Madison at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 18 and La Crosse at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 19.

The tour features participants from top-ranked AVP men's and women's players on a rotational basis (four players per gender per event) and replicates the authentic Southern California beach party atmosphere featured at a typical AVP Crocs Tour Event.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh emerged as the marquee female volleyball players during the last Olympics and form the top women's team on the tour. Nicole Branaugh and Elaine Youngs are ranked second.

Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers form the top ranked men's team. Mike Lambert and Stein Metzger are the second-ranked team.

These top-ranked players are not scheduled to make the Wisconsin leg of the tour. Matt Fuerbringer, a member of the sixth ranked team on the tour, will compete here and is getting ready for cold weather.

"When I played in Austria, rather than lug around all these winter coats, I would wear a sweat shirt and a big jacket and just sprint from the taxi to the arena," said Fuerbringer, a native of Costa Mesa, Calif. "I would just grin and bear it until I got inside where it was warm."

Fuerbringer said he asked the AVP to send him to the Wisconsin tour stops because it is one of the few states he has never visited. The format for the winter tour is four men and four women playing until there is one champion for each gender.

Fuerbringer said the men accompanying him to Wisconsin are Jeff Nygaard, John Hyden and Dax Holdren.

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