Flipping The Script, an Interview with Shannon Winzer

Canada’s women’s national team is coming off one of their most successful seasons in 2023. After their best result to date at the Volleyball Nations League (VNL), the team kept rolling to a bronze medal at the NORCECA Continental Championships before heading to the Olympic Qualification Tournament (OQT). With an impressive 5-2 record at the OQT, Canada narrowly missed out on a berth to the Paris 2024 Olympics. But currently as the 11^th ranked team in the world, they remain in a great position to qualify through the rankings this upcoming summer.

Shannon Winzer, head coach of the women’s national team, joined Wes Chen and Momentum Volleyball to discuss the OQT, the growth of the women’s program, and a few of her key coaching philosophies. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The women’s national team had a busy season preparing for the OQT last year. Can you tell us a bit about that summer leading up to the qualifiers?

In the big picture, our preparation for Olympic qualification really began years ago. The summer started off strong with VNL and moving up the world rankings. We also had a few Pan Am competitions that helped our whole roster get experience leading up to the NORCECA Championships in Quebec. That was a phenomenal event and great preparation going into the OQT.

We traveled to Korea right after to work with one of their top teams, whose coach (Marcello Abbondanza) was actually one of Canada’s former coaches. We got to train at their facility and played a few matches with them. Our team does really well preparing in an environment where we’re fully immersed and our main focus is Team Canada. We wanted to get out of Richmond before going to the OQT and this was ideal for us.

It was a pretty surreal moment for everyone when we finally walked into the host hotel in China. We got to our team’s floor and it really hit home that we were about to have our first attempt at Olympic qualification. We knew this was a very real chance for us. After so much hard work, I think that moment was something a lot of the athletes and coaches will remember.

What was the OQT experience like and some of the team’s key takeaways from it?

It was a very difficult schedule with 7 games in 9 days, and all against top teams in the world. We started with a 5-set win against the Netherlands and then a close 5-set loss to the Dominican Republic. Unfortunately that would be the deciding factor since sets won/lost was the first tiebreaker in the final standings. I thought we had a really strong tournament and our record was something to be proud of. We didn’t achieve our ultimate goal of qualifying for the Olympics but we’re still in a good position to do so this summer.

What really hit home was our understanding that every single point and every single set matters. Even if you win, you don’t want to give sets away against teams you shouldn’t if it comes down to a tiebreak in the standings. So it reinforced the takeaway that when we go into VNL this summer, every single point and set is going to matter.

Another key thing is to not lose perspective. Over the past few years we’ve done really well at knowing our style of play and where we’re at as a team. I think we embrace what we do well, and as the pressure increases it’s going to be important that we maintain that perspective and focus. We’ve shown time and time again that we can beat the top teams. Our approach isn’t just to be competing but that we’re actually here to win. It’s been a real shift in our program’s mindset and I don’t think there’s anyone on the team who believes that we won’t make it to the Olympics.

How has Canada’s volleyball development pathway contributed to the success of the women’s national team in getting to this point?

I think the success that we’re having right now is because there’s a lot of talent in our system, which has come through U SPORTS programs as well as the NCAA. Those programs provided great platforms and opportunities for our athletes to develop during their years there. They’ve then gone on to play in some of the top leagues around the world. Training and playing with the best teams and players in the world on a regular basis is a huge part of that developmental success.

I’m very proud of the framework that we’ve implemented with the National Excellence Program and NextGen in recent years. We’ve put a real focus on that development pathway and I think we’re absolutely going to see its benefits in the next 4-8 years. It’ll provide sustainable, long-term international success for Canada but we still have to wait a bit longer to see the results of that framework.

A lot of the talent you’re seeing now is a credit to the universities for preparing them for a professional contract. Also to the athletes themselves for investing in their own development and pushing their own careers professionally to be able to play for Canada. We bring it all together by building our culture, changing our program’s mindset, and keeping perspective. I think that’s why you’re seeing this current success with the national team.

Following up on that, what are some of those important values and philosophies that you bring to the national team program?

My philosophies revolve around how I work with people and how we’re all going to work with one another. The number one thing for athletes and staff in our program is that we prioritize relationships. I truly believe that we can’t do great things unless we have a strong relationships that are built on trust. This takes time and it takes effort. We make it a priority and put energy into it on and off the court.

I also mentioned keeping perspective earlier, which I think is important for building an environment where the athletes can try and do big things. We won’t qualify for the Olympics by playing safe and we always have to be prepared to take risks. To push your limits, you have to be in a setting where you feel safe and trusted to do so. I believe our perspective is key in helping us create that type of environment with this team.

Finally I believe that culture supersedes everything. You need to have a winning culture to be successful, one that’s built on the pursuit of excellence. It includes how the athletes pursue excellence, how I pursue excellence as a coach, and how we all pursue excellence off the court is really important as well. My philosophy evolves as I evolve as a coach but the culture, perspective, and relationship pieces are all things that are extremely important to me.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with the readers?

If someone asked me what I thought the biggest difference was between 4 years ago and right now, I’d say it’s the belief. We believe we can qualify for the Olympics. We have a lot of talent but our belief started with building the culture and the relationships. It started with changing our narrative or as we call it, “flipping the script”.

I’m really proud of this program and I’m really proud of the athletes. They’re phenomenal and deserve the world. I also have a really great staff and can’t say enough good things about them. We still have a lot of work to do but we’re in a position now where the mindset is where it needs to be for us to achieve our goals.