He was raised in a family of five pretty tall kids, who just so happened to have a volleyball net in the backyard of their Murrayville home.
“Volleyball was always around when I was young,” explained 28-year-old Daniel Jansen VanDoorn, a middle blocker for the Volleyball Canada men’s team, who are currently playing in the world championships in Bulgaria this week.
The first time Jansen VanDoorn played volleyball on a team was at age 14.
Admittedly, the co-ed team played in only one tournament, and he recalled just how “awful” he was. In fact, his lack of ability found Jansen VanDoorn cut from the club at age 16.
“I only really played volleyball because all my siblings before me had, but I really didn’t like it,” he said.
Well, things have obviously changed for the Langley born athlete who attended kindergarten through Grade 12 at Langley Christian School, before pursuing his BBA in business leadership and management at Trinity Western University and playing volleyball for the Spartans.
“While I didn’t always love volleyball, my love for the sport grew as my level increased,” he shared with the Langley Advance.
“As I grew and figured the game out… I improved and I also ended up enjoying the game more every year.”
After graduating from Trinity, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to stop playing volleyball, so he looked for a contract in Europe. “My agent found a team in France, and I found that I loved playing overseas.”
That was five years ago, and consecutively Jansen VanDoorn has been with the Canada team for seven summers. Initially, he was selected during open tryouts for the B team and five years ago he was called up to the senior team.
It’s now a sport he loves. So much so, in fact, that he’s a full-time professional volleyball player who’s travelling the world year round playing.
“I’ve been in France for four years, in their domestic professional league. I also spent one season in the Greek league, and this year I’m playing for a team in Finland,” he explained.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to travel through most of Europe, and other countries in North and South America, Asia, and the middle east in the past 10 or so years. My favourites would probably be Japan, Russia, Greece, and Brazil,” Jansen VanDoorn added.
So how about the team’s current stop in Bulgaria for the men’s world championships.
“There’s usually some down time that we can spend however we want. For a tournament of this scale, we normally spend most of our free time getting physio, rehabbing injuries, watching game-tape, sleeping, etc.”
But he is glad to report that he’s been able to see a bit of the town between practices and games, and quite loving it.
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Jansen VanDoorn is not the only one with Langley connections.
His comrade on the court, player #16, Ryan Sclater, is another familiar B.C. boy with ties back to Langley.
The 25-year-old Port Coquitlam who also formerly played for Trinity Western University, is also in Ruse, Bulgaria where the Canadians won their first three games, but fell Monday to Brazil and Tuesday to France.
Canada now travels to Sofia, Bulgaria, for the next round, with some key technical elements to work on, according to Canada’s coach Stephane Antiga.
It hasn’t been an easy run, Jansen Van Doorn said of the current world championships.
But asked what he’s enjoyed most, be it on the court or off, about being in Bulgaria, he quickly answered.
“I’ve enjoyed watching the team fight through some adversity to put some good games together.
“Some guys are dealing with injuries or other personal problems that hinder their performance, and it’s fun to see the guys pick each other up and play well together.”
While this championship – whatever the outcome – wraps up his season with the Canada team, volleyball doesn’t end for Jansen VanDoorn.
“Like any professional sport, this is a full-time job,” he said, noting there are around 150 Canadian men and women playing professionally in Europe, Asia, South America from September - May every year.
He goes straight to his next professional season in Finland – until late April – then he looks forward to another summer with the national team next summer.
His ultimate goal is to play in his second Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.
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WEEKEND UPDATED:
Canada has improved its standings this weekend in the championships, but it’s not good enough to advance.
While the U.S. is dominating and Bulgaria and Iran are coming third and fourth, respectively, Canaa is holding strong to second in its pool at the championships.
Playing in Sofia, Bulgaria this weekend, Canada beat Irna Saturday, 3-2. Then on Sunday, Canada won over the home team 3-2, but it was to be their final match in the competition. They needed all three points to advance, and that wasn’t in the cards, said their coach Stephane Antiga.
Canada ended ranked seventh overall out of 24 teams, tied with Belgium.
In today’s contest, it looked like Canada was going to make a clean sweep after the first two sets, but buoyed by some adjustments on the court and the enthusiastic crowd, the Bulgarians came back to win the next two sets. However, Canada regrouped to cleanly win the tie-break.
Despite coming on the court only late in the second set, Bulgarian Nikolay Uchikov finished with 20 points to lead all scorers. Gordon Perrin accounted for 18 of Canada’s points; following by Nick Hoag with 15 and Lucas Van Berkel with 13.
“We knew it would be a fun game and a great atmosphere; as we saw tonight, it was fantastic. I’m happy Bulgaria was able to play well in the end because it made for a better match for everybody,” said Canada’s captain Gord Perrin.
Overall, Canada had five wins and three losses in two rounds of play.
“We lost against three teams who were favourites to win the tournament (Brazil, France and the as yet unbeaten U.S.), “ Antiga said.
“We won against some good teams – Iran, the host team Bulgaria and we stayed close with Brazil and France, despite losing. That’s satisfying, but we wanted more because we know that we can win against the big teams and we did it during Nations League,” said the head coach.
“Now it will be time to analyze and compare team Canada to the best in the world. We still have some work to do to be able to consistent at the highest level. We can beat any team, but not consistently. If I have to mention one element it would be serving – I was impressed with the U.S., and looking at teams such as Russia and Italy, that is what they are doing much better than us.”
Antiga was impressed by the whole team effort, and that setter Jay Blankenau endured the full tournament as T.J. Sanders was not able to play due to injury.
“I will always say I want to play better, but the team played well around me,” said Jay Blankenau.
“The team’s performance was good – our left sides were amazing and our middles were blocking like crazy. Everyone had energy for the long tournament, which is difficult because sometimes your hopes are fading, but we pushed through to the end and we were rewarded with the win.”
Veteran Perrin concluded: “Unfortunately we had a time there where we didn’t win a game (against Brazil, France and the U.S.), it’s tough – we give a lot to play for this team and to fall short of our goals is difficult, but I’m happy the team rallied together and played well. That’s all we can do, and the rest is up to the volleyball gods.”
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