Sport for Life to Lead Major Competition Review for Ontario Volleyball Association
Sport for Life Society has embarked on a comprehensive review and restructuring of the Ontario Volleyball Association’s (OVA) competition system, addressing the organization’s remarkable growth and evolving needs. The initiative aims to develop new competition formats and support systems that will serve the volleyball community more effectively.
The OVA has experienced significant expansion, with a 23% annual growth in boys’ and girls’ participation and a record 901 teams competing at Ontario Championships this past year. This substantial growth is outpacing current capacity, creating an urgent need for innovative approaches to competition formats, facility usage, and support systems. The organization currently serves over 21,000 unique members including athletes, coaches, referees, and club administrators.
“This initiative will help create a competition structure that is balanced, scalable, and participant-centered,” says Richard Way, CEO of Sport for Life. “Our goal is to develop efficient pathways that produce world-class players in all volleyball disciplines while ensuring safe, inclusive environments for everyone involved.”
Sport for Life’s comprehensive review process is well underway, combining extensive data analysis with broad community engagement. The team is conducting in-depth evaluations of existing league structures, tournament formats, and championship events, with a particular focus on maximizing facility usage and creating more efficient competition schedules. Through town halls, focus groups, and surveys, they are gathering insights from players, coaches, officials, and administrators across Ontario’s six regions.
A key focus of the review is examining how competition formats can better serve different levels of play. The team is developing distinct pathways for recreational and high-performance athletes, ensuring both groups have appropriate, cost-effective opportunities to compete. This includes analyzing game rules, scheduling optimization, facility utilization, and competition frequency, all while ensuring alignment with Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) principles.
“We’re looking at innovative approaches to address capacity challenges while maintaining the quality of competition,” explains Tom Jones, Director of Community and International Engagement at Sport for Life and former Olympic volleyball player. “This means reimagining tournament formats, creating more efficient competition schedules, and finding creative solutions for facility usage that can accommodate our continued growth.”
The project is being led by a distinguished team including Jones and Heather Ross-McManus, an Olympian and Long-term Development Advisor. The team brings extensive experience in competition review, having previously worked with numerous national sport organizations and international bodies.
The review emphasizes several key areas:
- Streamlining tournament and league structures for better resource utilization
- Creating scalable systems that can accommodate future growth
- Optimizing provincial competition calendars across all regions
- Enhancing support systems for clubs, administrators, coaches, and referees
- Building developmentally appropriate competition pathways for all skill levels
- Ensuring equitable access to quality competition opportunities
- Incorporating EDIA (equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility) principles
- Addressing environmental sustainability in competition planning
Sport for Life will deliver its final recommendations in January 2025, providing the OVA with actionable strategies to implement for the 2026 season. These recommendations will focus on creating a more efficient, accessible, and sustainable competition structure that can support the organization’s continued growth while maintaining high-quality, affordable opportunities for all participants.
For more information about Sport for Life’s work in competition review and Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity, visit sportforlife.ca.
