By Troy Langstaff
Dalhousie’s Michael Donovan returned to Halifax earlier this month after competing for team Canada at the 2021 FIVB Men’s U21 World Championships. The tournament was jointly hosted by Bulgaria and Italy from September 23 to October 3.
Donovan and team Canada finished the tournament 10th out of the 16th participating nations with an overall record of 3-3.
The tournament may have taken place over the course of 10 days, but Donovan’s experience was much longer than that. The beginning of training camp until the end of the tournament took place over an almost three-month long period.
Due to the pandemic’s restrictions, Donovan was required to submit video for evaluation in place of in-person tryouts in the spring. He was selected and his journey to the world championships had begun.
Donovan had already played with and against some of the other team Canadian players and staff, so his experience was already off on the right track. That being said, his recent injury history and impact of COVID meant that he hadn’t played a meaningful game in almost two years but with regular training and help from team Canada staff, he was going to be ready for the tournament.
“Going into it we definitely had high expectations of ourselves – Volleyball Canada always does,” says Donovan. “[At the] beginning of the tournament our goal was to just finish top two in our pool. You have to finish top two in your pool to move on to the top bracket.”
In order to finish top two in their pool Donovan and the rest of Team Canada would have to win two of their three pool games. Seems simple enough right? Unfortunately for Canada they were placed in a pool with Russia and Brazil. The U21 world rankings had those countries ranked #2 and #4 respectively heading into the tournament.
The fourth and final team in their pool was Cameroon but they withdrew just before the start of the tournament.
“Looking back on it, that really hurt us,” said Donovan. “Cameroon would’ve been our first game, and it was cancelled so our first game was against Brazil who had already played against Russia.”
Brazil made easy work of an untested Canadian squad winning the match in straight sets.
“It just sucked that it was our first game of the tournament and we didn’t play our best volleyball,” adds Donovan. “We kind of gave them the game, we didn’t really put up much of a fight with how many errors we made.”
In a must-win game versus the Russians, Canada gave a strong effort ultimately losing in four sets. This meant that they were now in the bottom half of the draw with the best possible result being a ninth-place finish.
“It was a brief moment of feeling down. We lost those two games and now we’re in the bottom half and guys are definitely disappointed, but it was a quick change from that to ‘we’re competing for a ninth-place spot and we have to expect ourselves to get to that ninth place’.”
Donovan and company would get back on track winning their next three games versus Bahrain (3-0), Cuba (3-0) and Thailand (3-0). They would fall to Iran in the ninth-place match settling for a 10th place finish among some of the best volleyball nations in the world.
“It was awesome,” says Donovan about winning their first game. “We were really excited after that first win. It was a pretty quick game. We took care of business, we expected to win that game.”
Many players from other countries have additional experience playing with their nation’s senior national programs including the Olympics.
“Some of the guys that were on the top teams played at the Olympics and came down and played for those teams,” says Donovan. “It was something we talked about off the court… but once we’re on the court we’re not thinking about that at all.”
It did take a strong mentality to think like that though.
“It was hard to prepare for it really, even mentally and physically just because a lot of those countries, most of those guys have been playing professional for multiple years now.”
Although it might be hard to comprehend just how talented some of the competition is, Donovan knew how to get past it.
“After that brief moment you have to look past it and recognize that they’re just another couple of 20-year-olds on the team that we have to beat and that’s just the way we have to look at it.”
Now being back in Halifax, Donovan has had some time to reflect on the experience. Before heading to Bulgaria for the tournament the team spent some time in Slovenia which was a first for Donovan.
“Visiting a country as nice as Slovenia, I think it’s one of the nicest countries I’ve ever been to,” says Donovan. “Just spending time there and getting to explore around and hang out with the team. That was probably my highlight of the trip.”
As for the tournament itself there was one moment in particular that stood out to him.
“In our first win actually, against Bahrain, that was the first game I started in and that week we had been working on a certain play,” explains Donovan. “It was a back pipe set, basically when the setter gets pushed forward you set back pipe and we ran two of them in the game to me. I scored on both of them, and we looked at our coach right away and gave him a nod that we ran the play and it worked out both times. That was probably my playing highlight I’d say. That was really fun to do.”
When asked what he took away from the experience, Donovan kept it honest and simple.
“Just always be grateful for the opportunity to play, especially when you’re representing Canada. I think I became really grateful for every moment I’m able to be out there and healthy and playing the game I love.”
Donning the national colours is something he has done a few times now but it’s something he takes great pride in.
“I remember the first time I made the national team – it was a huge honour. It was one of my dreams to play for the national team but actually playing at an international tournament, lining up, playing the national anthem, and representing the flag was pretty amazing,” adds Donovan.
“Definitely an experience I’ll never forget.”