黑马磁力's Brodie Hofer helped lead Team Canada in points when his team took on Germany in front of a home crowd in Quebec City on Wednesday.
Hofer, an outside hitter with the Volleyball Nations League, is showing the world what he's got during Week 1 of the international men's tournament currently underway in Quebec.
After defeating Germany 3-2 (23-25, 25-19, 21-25, 25-23, 15-11), Team Canada鈥檚 next game is against Argentina today (Thursday, June 12). Then after a day off the competition court, Team Canada plays France (current Olympic champion) on Saturday and Bulgaria on Sunday.
As for Wednesday's game against Germany, head coach Dan Lewis described it as a hard-fought battle from the opening serve.
Canada dropped the first set but battled back to tie it up in the second. While Germany took the third set and an early lead in the fourth (7-2 at one point), Canada rallied to close out the tight match with wins in the final two sets.
"I'm just so incredibly proud of this group,鈥� Lewis said. 鈥�(They) haven't been together too long, like most of the teams, but we were down in multiple sets, and we lost one that maybe we shouldn't have early on.
"But they never lost their focus, and they just kept forward, going forward, pushing through. And this is going to be a big thing for us.鈥�
Jackson Young led the way for the Canadians with 17 points and an impressive 26.32 efficiency percentage. Veteran Ryan Sclater (who formerly played for Trinity Western University's Spartans) also had 17 points.
Meanwhile, Hofer led the team in points off the attack with 14 (and two aces), while team captain Fynn McCarthy in blocks with five.
"We just made one little change,鈥� Lewis continued. 鈥淲e had to take a bit more risk on serve, and the guys just started touching balls, touching the block, and the block defence really came together nicely.
"And if we had a hiccup, it didn't faze this team at all. So, I'm really proud of them. Fynn (team captain) is sending good messaging to the guys about this and we're going to make sure that this is a first principle for us," said the coach.
The Volleyball Nations League introduced a new format in 2025 with 18 men鈥檚 and 18 women鈥檚 teams. Each team will play 12 preliminary phase matches over three weeks, with weekly pools of six teams competing across three venues.
