Shannon Winzer takes charge of Canadian Women 

OTTAWA, Canada, December 9, 2020 – The Canadian women’s national team will enter 2021 guided by former assistant coach Shannon Winzer, who was selected to be the team’s new head coach following the departure of Tom Black. 

Winzer, who was an assistant for both the senior national team and the NextGen programme, a development initiative created by the country’s federation, already has experience coaching internationally as she was the head coach of the Australian national team between 2016 and 2019.

During that period, the former player took the Volleyroos to the 30th spot in the FIVB World Ranking, their best position in several years.

“I’m very honoured and extremely excited to be named the next head coach for team Canada,” Winzer said about the appointment. “The potential of this current group of athletes, as well as all the athletes coming up our pathway, was the single biggest factor in deciding to move back home from Australia to work with team Canada.”

Winzer will lead an up-and-coming group of players, who currently rank 18th in the world. They have had promising results in the last few years, including victories at the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Challenger Cup and the 2017 NORCECA Championships.

The first big challenge for the new head coach will be to lead the Canadians in their first-ever FIVB Volleyball Nations League appearance, in 2021.

“I’m excited about the women’s national team and women’s volleyball as a whole in Canada,” she added. “In 2021 we will see our national team compete in the VNL for the first time, which is huge as we will get to test ourselves week in and week out against the best teams in the world. Tom has done an outstanding job with this programme and has laid a solid foundation upon which we can continue to build on. There is no doubt that we are moving in the right direction, working towards great things, which I’m optimistic will lead to future Olympic qualification.”