For volleyball fans around the world, October is the best time of year to learn about the newest inductees into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame. We salute Barry Couzner, Laura Ludwig and the rest of the Class of 2025. However, we salute Canada’s volleyball pioneers, past and present. This article highlights the groundbreaking Canadian volleyball players in the Volleyball Canada Hall of Fame who made us fall in love with the ultimate two-player sport.
Dave Carey
Dave Carey is a true hero of Ontario volleyball players. Carry learned the ropes at the University of Victoria and then at Scarborough Solar’s in the 1970s and 1980s. He became a member of the board in 1980 and then chairman in 1996. He was also a coach at the club.
Dave was also elected Vice-President of Volleyball Canada in 1992 and ultimately President in 2000 until leaving the position in 2006. As Chair of the Outdoor Volleyball Committee, Dave was instrumental in getting Team Canada involved in the 2012 London Olympics. Carey remains involved in developing new volleyball stars to popularize the sport and increase coverage on sports media and social media platforms.
Wanda Guenette
Few Canadians have had as much of an impact on the sport as Wanda Guenette, who has been playing volleyball for almost 40 years. Nowadays, fans flock to social media and find the latest news in the best way gambling sites for canadians to advocate for contemporary Canadian volleyball stars like Hillary Howe and Brandie Wilkerson. However, they owe a debt of gratitude to Wanda for modernizing and building the profile of Canadian women’s volleyball. Wanda set the bar for excellence as she was part of Team Canada at the numerous Pan American Games and the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Wanda has been coaching beach volleyball since 2001. When she left coaching in 2013, Wanda added three World Masters Games gold medals to her Hall of Fame resume. In addition to being inducted into the Volleyball Canada Hall of Fame, Wanda also has the honor of being inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 2014.
Doramy Ehling
While Hall of Famers mainly achieve good results as players, Doramy Ehling took her rightful place in the 2024 Volleyball Canada Hall of Fame for her work off the court. Doramy got her start in volleyball as the manager of a high school team in Vancouver. Her success led her to help manage the Junior National Women’s team in Ottawa in 1980.
Ehling remained with the national team until 1983 before moving on as technical coordinator for Volleyball Canada. Doramy has been a sports volunteer for the past 30 years and has served on the boards of Volleyball BC and the Sport Medicine Council of Canada.
Michelle Sawatzky-Koop
As a member of the Manitoba Bisons university team, Michelle was a two-time CIS Championship MVP in 1990 and 1991 and a member of three championship teams. Michelle would get her first taste of the national team and helped win the bronze medal at the 1995 Pan American Games, which would serve as a stepping stone to the Canadian National Team for the 1996 Olympics.
After retiring from the national team, Michelle continued to work in volleyball, coaching at the program at Steinbach and at the University of Manitoba. Michelle started radio broadcasting in the late 1990s. Throughout her life, Michelle has overcome several obstacles on her path to the Volleyball Canada Hall of Fame. Despite being smaller than most volleyball players, her unbeatable work ethic and practice regimen makes her an enduring role model for today’s Canadian volleyball players.
Kent Greves
Kent began his national team career as a member of the Junior National Team in 1987. Kent was a member of Team Canada that competed in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. During his career, Kent played more than 350 games for Canada, including two World Championships, a World Cup and the Olympic Games. He was part of the 1999 World League game that upset Brazil and the Netherlands.
Kent played professional volleyball in Europe for eleven seasons, including several years in Belgium and then in France with the Paris Saint-Germain Volley. He played for the Paris Volley Team for five seasons, achieving several records and titles along the way. In 2009, Kent was inducted into the Alberta Volleyball Hall of Fame, and after his retirement, he was inducted into the Volleyball Canada Hall of Fame in 2023.
Conclusion
As volleyball continues to gain recognition on the international stage, every country has its volleyball heroes who are inducted into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame. Canada is known for hockey, baseball and basketball, but it remains a quiet powerhouse for volleyball. These inductees continue to raise the bar and put Canada on the map for competitive volleyball.
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