Volleyball Nations League Announces Two Canadian Host Cities

The FIVB has just announced the host cities and schedule for the 2022 Volleyball Nations League. Two Canadian cities will be among the hosting sites – Ottawa for the men, and Calgary for the women.

The FIVB Volleyball Nations League features the best 16 men’s and 16 women’s participating teams as they battle it out for top spot at different global venues across Europe, North America, South America and Asia, starting in May 2022.

The 16 teams will compete in pools of eight in the preliminary rounds. Eight teams per gender will then move into the final knockout phase of the competition. Under this new format, each team will play 12 matches over the three weeks of the pool phase. Each team will compete in four matches over six days of competition, for each of the three weeks.

Ottawa will play host to the men’s teams of: Canada, Argentina, Poland, Italy, France, Germany, Serbia and Bulgaria during the first week of games from June 7-12. The games will be hosted at TD Place Arena, which hosted VNL games back in 2018 and 2019.

The Canadian men will then move on to Sofia, Bulgaria for their second week of preliminary pool play, and Kemerovo, Russia for the last week of pool play.

Canada finished the 2021 Volleyball Nations League in eighth place with a 7-8 record.

For the Canadian women, Calgary will host the third week of pool play from June 28-July 3. Calgary will host the following teams: Canada, Netherlands, USA, Belgium, Turkey, Germany, Japan and Serbia. The Canadian women will play in Shreveport-Bossier City, USA for the first week of games, and Brasilia, Brazil for week two, before getting to play on home soil.

The 2021 Volleyball Nations League was the first time the Canadian women had competed in the tournament. They finished in 14th spot with 3 wins and 12 losses.

Volleyball Canada is expected to announce more information regarding the venues and ticketing info in the New Year.