The U Sports Men's Volleyball Championship is a Canadian university

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

tournament conducted by

U Sports U Sports (stylized as U SPORTS) is the national sport governing body for universities in Canada, comprising the majority of degree-granting universities in the country and four regional conferences: Ontario University Athletics (OUA), Résea ...

, and determines the men's national champion. The tournament involves the champions from each of Canada's four regional sports conferences. The Tantramar Trophy is awarded to the winners. The

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champions are the Brandon Bobcats, who won their first championship in program history. The

Manitoba Bisons The Manitoba Bisons are the athletic teams that represent the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The football team plays at Princess Auto Stadium, the soccer team plays at the outdoor soccer field on campus, track and field te ...

, Winnipeg Wesmen and Alberta Golden Bears have won the most championships with each school having won ten times.

History

The first championship tournament was held in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

and featured the

UBC Thunderbirds The UBC Thunderbirds are the athletic teams that represent the University of British Columbia. In Canadian intercollegiate competition, the Thunderbirds are the most successful athletic program both regionally in the Canada West Universities Athl ...

defeating the Mount Allison Mounties 3–0 and the Sherbrooke Vert et Or 3–0 en route to being the first CIAU men's volleyball champions. They were given the Tantramar Trophy, named after the Tantramar Marshes in

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, which was donated in 1967 by

Mount Allison University Mount Allison University (also Mount A or MtA) is a Canadian primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, founded in 1839. Mount Allison was the first university in the British Empire to award a baccal ...

. While early records are not readily available, the championship has been played as a

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...

at least since 1980. In 1983, six teams played in two pools and then, based on the results, advanced to

single-elimination A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

games to determine a winner. In 1985, the current format of full single-elimination games was adopted with eight team competing in the tournament. Both the 2020 and 2021 championship tournaments were cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Format

The championship currently consists of an eight-team tournament, with champions from each of the three conferences, one host (from

Canada West The Province of Canada (or the United Province of Canada or the United Canadas) was a British colony in British North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, in the Report ...

in 2020 and 2021), an additional Canada West team, two additional OUA teams, and one additional team from the RSEQ. While the berths for the conference champions and host remain consistent year-to-year, the other four invitees can change based on the host's conference and the competitive landscape in U Sports. The championship takes place over three days and features 11 games, with teams seeded 1–8. Teams are ranked by a committee as well as by the ELO ranking used to determine weekly Top 10 rankings nationally. Conference champions can be ranked no lower than 6th place. The team ranked 1st plays the 8th ranked team, 2nd plays 7th, 3rd plays 6th, and 4th plays 5th in the quarter-finals. To ensure common rest times, teams are not re-seeded after the first round, so the winner of 1v8 plays the winner of 4v5 and the winner of 2v7 plays the winner of 3v6. There is also a consolation bracket to determine the third-place winner (bronze medalist) and fifth-place winner. The gold medal game is the last game played in the tournament.

Results

Round Robin Format (1967–1982)

Transition Format (1983–1984)

Single Elimination Format (1985–present)

Results by schools

Due to information limitations, the following table includes all known first, second, and third-place finishes, as indicated above. Prior to 1983, there were no third-place finishes, and the second-place finish was the loser of the championship game. While the

Dalhousie Tigers The Dalhousie Tigers are the men's and women's athletic teams that represent Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Tigers field 14 varsity teams with seven men's teams and seven women's teams that primarily compete in the Atla ...

now play in the RSEQ, they had won their medals while playing in the AUS conference, which no longer fields men's volleyball teams.

External links

U Sports Men's Volleyball Championship

References

{{Volleyball in Canada U Sports trophies National volleyball leagues Volleyball in Canada U Sports volleyball Volleyball, Men's