By Isabella Disley & Keiran Gorsky
Walk into any championship youth volleyball tournament nowadays and you’ll be greeted by a deafening sounds unbecoming of their sprawling warehouse-style facilities – the steady squeaks of shoes on interlocking tiles, referees’ whistles seemingly shrieking from countless courts at once, and of course the radiant cheers from players and fans after every point won.
It’s utter mayhem, and the participants absolutely love it.
“It’s a nice kind of chaos,” laughs outside hitter Natasha Winsor of the Ottawa Maverick Volleyball Club, now set to embark on her 18U season of volleyball. “The energy there is just so great.”
It was a 7:30 a.m. start time for the hometown Maverick Outlaws when they played at Volleyball Canada’s Youth 14U Girls East National Championships in May, but Carleton University was already thumping with energy and excitement as the team paraded out with their golden bronco head on a pole.
“It’s very high energy,” states coach Derek Dedman. “The girls are all wearing their team gear, and everybody’s loud.”
The event took over the Ravens Nest, the fieldhouse and hockey rinks, with temporary courts installed to accommodate a total of 128 teams. In prior editions, the boys’ 14-and-under east event was hosted at Carleton as well, but the size of the girls’ tournament continued to grow. Friendships fuel a lot of it.
“It’s really like a family because we hang out outside of volleyball, and we all love each other,” illustrates Adrianna Dedman, who started playing volleyball three years ago. “I think it’s really cool being in a group, being in a place where everyone plays the same sport as me and loves the same things as me.”
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Jon Bain, who coached the Maverick Raiders at the nationals, notes that tryouts can attract 170-240 players in one age cohort. He says that team bonding activities play “a big part of trying to get a young team that doesn’t know each other well together.”
“It’s been really helpful to help get them together and understand and learn their own personalities,” Bain explains, “and how they work through both the trials and tribulations and the joys of this game.”
For the Outlaws, one team activity last season included helping their assistant coach, Kaleigh Bruijns, move into a new home.
“It’s the best bonded team I’ve ever coached. It’s amazing. They love to be together, so it’s not hard,” Dedman highlights, noting the players love soaking in the exciting atmosphere of big tournaments.
“There’s going to be ups and downs,” he adds, “but as long as they can hold their heads high and continue to drive themselves with the energy around them, then they’ll be just fine.”
It’s all part of the environment in a sport that’s grown in leaps and bounds in recent years. Volleyball Canada set a record with 1,992 teams competing at its 2026 national indoor championships for the 14U to 18U age groups, and that was before the boost that will come from the Canadian women’s team qualifying for its first Olympics since 1996 (and the Canadian men have an opportunity to join them soon as well).
Convention centres are “bursting at the seams trying to contain our thriving community” for championship events, describes the Ontario Volleyball Association, which recently opened bidding for the Ontario Championships for 2030 to 2032, mirroring major international sports events.
And it’s not just provincials or nationals that fill up dozens of courts, it’s also significant tournaments leading up to the championships.
This season, the OVA’s Fall Classic will feature 192 teams from Nov. 6-8 at Ottawa’s Cohere Centre, while the 15U girls’ and 17U boys’ 2027 provincials will take over the 220,000-square foot facility from Apr. 8-13.
If those numbers aren’t impressive enough, just picture the 2026 Ontario Championships when 1,338 teams competed over nine days at the Enercare Centre in Toronto.
The non-competition spaces were expansive as well – a humming inflatable arch rising up and into the rafters to invite players to a giant rest area and merchandise shop.
There was constant action for 14 hours a day across 58 courts. Balls from adjacent games occasionally trespassed past netting and found their way onto other courts, prompting referees to cut rallies short.
“It’s kind of a level playing field because everyone is dealing with the same stuff,” chuckles long-time Maverick coach Bruce Dunning, who counts among his main responsibilities trying to get his players to forget the hoopla and remember they’re still playing volleyball.
“Young athletes tend to build the bigger competitions up in what it means,” he explains. “We’re just trying to get them to deal with what they would perceive as the increased demands and pressure of that.”
Dunning’s Maverick Mustangs 18U boys earned the best local results at this past season’s provincials and nationals, finishing fourth on both occasions, missing a Canadian championships medal by just a few points from a medal with a 15-12 final-set loss.
“The nature of being a club coach doesn’t really lend itself to being solely focused on results,” Dunning outlines. “Your job is to try and create a good atmosphere for athlete development and getting them on to the next stage. And then if you do a good job and you’ve got good athletes, you tend to get good results.”
Numerous local players excelled in that setting and were selected for Team Ontario summertime programs.
Among them was the Mavs’ Quinn Brydges, who also experienced another aspect of Canadian volleyball championships when she paired up with Karissa Martin to win the top-tier 18U girls’ bronze medal at the beach nationals to finish up her big season.
“So so grateful for the opportunity to train and compete with Team O this summer!” Brydges wrote on Instagram. “What an honour to play alongside such amazing teammates and be a part of an experience I’ll never forget.”