NAIT hosts national collegiate men’s volleyball championships this week

Squads from B.C.'s Vancouver Island University and New Brunswick's St. Thomas University in action on March 11, 2026, at the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association men's volleyball championships being hosted by Edmonton's Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.

For the first time in its history, an Edmonton post-secondary school is hosting a national volleyball championship.

The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) is the site of this year’s men’s volleyball finals for the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association. The four-day finals started on Wednesday and end on Saturday.

Eight teams are contesting for the title:

• Red Deer Polytechnic Kings (Red Deer, Alta.)
• Vancouver Island University (VIU) Mariners (Nanaimo, B.C.)
• St. Thomas University Tommies (Fredericton, N.B.)
• Humber College Hawks (Toronto)
• College of the Rockies (COTR) Avalanche (Cranbrook, B.C.)
• Cégep Limoilou Titans (Quebec City)
• Providence University College Pilots (Otterburne, Man.)
• the host NAIT Ooks

Jordan Richey, the chair of the event’s organizing committee and NAIT’s director of athletics and recreation, said Wednesday the school completed renovations to the 1,000-seat gymnasium in preparation for the championships.

“Hosting a championship of this magnitude is very important for the institution and for our athletics program,” Richey told CTV News Edmonton.

The men’s volleyball championships mark the 10th time NAIT has hosted a national finals. The polytechnical school of about 30,000 students has previously hosted six badminton championships, two basketball championships and one soccer finals.

Richey said men’s volleyball finals tournament passes are almost sold out.

Tickets are available online. Games can also be watched online via the NAIT Ooks or CCAA websites.

The teams come from six regional collegiate conferences: the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference, the Pacific Western Athletic Association, the Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference, the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association, the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec and the Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association. Red Deer (2025) and NAIT, with its first national men’s title in 2024, won the last two national titles.

Red Deer, which beat Fort McMurray’s Keyano College in the ACAC gold-medal final, has won the national men’s championships 14 times since the collegiate nationals were first held in 1979, including a record eight-year run from 2000-08.

COTR was the top-ranked team nationally at the end of the regular season in late February, followed by Red Deer and Limoilou. NAIT, which placed sixth in the ACAC championships, ranked ninth nationally.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Galen McDougall