2013 NORCECA Championship preview

LANGLEY, B.C. (August 28, 2013) World-class men’s volleyball kicks off in Langley, BC, on September 23, with three matches including Canada facing Guatemala at 8 pm at the Langley Events Centre. Other games that day include the U.S. against St. Lucia, and Cuba vs the Bahamas. The NORCECA Men’s Volleyball Continental Championship continues to Sept. 28.

“We are very excited to bring this level of volleyball to Langley – it promises to be an excellent event for both competitors and spectators alike,” said Jared Harman, Director, Business Development at the Langley Events Centre.

Nine teams from the FIVB’s North and Central America and Caribbean regions will participate. Among the top men’s teams in the round-robin tournament are the United States (#5 FIVB, #1 NORCECA), Cuba (#5, #2) Canada (#11, #3), Puerto Rico (#20, #4), Mexico (#23, #5) and the Dominican Republic (#41, #6).

For the Canadian team, it’s been an exciting year, with its best-ever FIVB World League performance (fifth overall) earlier this summer, including a confidence boosting win over 2012 Olympic gold medalist team, Russia.  This brought Canada’s overall world ranking from 18th to 11th.

“The NORCECA championship is a very important event for us,” said men’s national team coach, Glenn Hoag. “It will mean more high level matches for our group. It will be another amazing experience for our players to play in front of a home crowd. We are training hard with the main objective of winning the event.”

The Canadian team is currently in the midst of a two-week tour in Europe for training and matches. Although the final lineups have yet to be released, the Canadian team includes several BC natives, including captain Fred Winters and setter Josh Howatson. 

The full event schedule is available at http://www.langleyeventscentre.com/continentalvolleyball

Tickets can be purchased at Ticketmaster.ca

WEBCAST INFORMATION

Excellent Quality webcasts can be purchased at a low price of $1.99 per day, or $4.99 for the complete events.

Links to the schedule and live stream are available at http://www.langleyeventscentre.com/continentalvolleyball
The 2013 NORCECA Men’s Continental Championship gold-medal team qualifies for the 2013 FIVB Grand Champions Cup to be played November 19 to 24 in Japan. The NORCECA Men’s Continental Championship is held every other year. Cuba is the defending champion; Canada finished third at the last event.

NORCECA is the continental confederation that represents its 35 member countries at the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB)  level. The Confederation is responsible for, among other things, the staging of Olympic and World Championship zone qualification tournaments, as well as continental championships for both men and women in Indoor and Beach Volleyball.