Congratulations to all the athletes of the 2025 Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals! That was one for the record books!

Here at vbs apparel we're taking a minute to sit back, breathe easy, and try to recover from a month of chasing you and your enthusiasm for volleyball across the country. 4 cities, 1,200+ teams, 20,000+ athletes, and more screaming than our ears will ever recover from—Nationals really is one of the biggest parties that the country has to throw.

The ones who make it all worth it are you—the athletes, the coaches, the supporters, and the officials. Every time a player hits that perfect spike or a parent in the crowd holds up a sign of their kid's face and cheers, you're making Nationals into something unforgettable. We hope you had fun partying with Pepper in the Athletes Zone, or getting decked out in a creative theme day outfit.

Let's not forget to thank the team at Volleyball Canada as well as your families and communities! It takes a monumental amount of effort to organize the largest single-sport event in Canada, and we know you're all supported by the dedication and enthusiasm of your friends and family. A big thanks to the referees and officials as well, without whom we couldn't even run the games!

Thanks for coming through the merch booth, spreading excitement and victory with you. It was pretty great to see so many of you sporting this year's designs day in and day out at each tournament. We might be a little biased, but we think you looked great! Did you have a favourite piece of apparel, or was there a must-have accessory? Drop us a comment on our Instagram, we always love hearing from you!

Congratulations to all of the Nationals medalists!
Your 2025 Tier 1 Champions are:

No matter what tier you played in, your results are something to be remembered. What better way to celebrate that with custom 2025 Nationals Medalist apparel, for you and your whole team of victors! Take a look at this year’s medalist apparel, and have your team coordinator fill out our intake form here. We’ll have your medalist merch store up in 1-2 days, and you’ll be proudly sporting your well-earned medalist merch within 4 weeks.

(Psst: Are you kicking yourself because you didn’t buy a particular merch piece at your event? It’s not too late! The Post Sale is live now through June 30 at 12 PM MT. This is your last chance to grab this year’s merch, so act now!)

The 2025 Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals might be over now, but the memories will last forever. We can’t wait to see you next year!

A key service of ours here at vbs apparel is our Custom Online Store Program. We’ve heard from many of our clients that custom-tailored online stores have been a game changer, making it considerably easier to order custom apparel for their group. Whether you want customised apparel for a large organisation or a smaller group, we offer clients the opportunity of launching a Custom Online Store.

Often potential clients are dissuaded from ordering new apparel for their clubs because of the time and effort the process requires. When there are countless other things calling for attention, it's hard to prioritise the nice-to-haves over the need-to-haves. We understood this and introduced Custom Online Stores. 

This process consists of four steps: Choosing products and artwork, Designing the custom store, Production of the items, and Delivery. Our awesome Customer Service Representatives will work directly with you and guide you through the entire process.

This step of the process is exactly what it sounds like. We chat with you to understand the needs and desires for your apparel. This can occur through a phone call, or an in-person meeting. Following that, we offer some suitable options from our suppliers. We can offer you premium brand names that reflect your organisations quality, hooking you up with lululemon, Nike, Adidas and more. We also support Canadian brands, like up-and-coming streetwear-inspired brand Just Like Hero. Gildan and Augusta are among our economical options. We work within your budget and find the best fit for you.

The next procedural step is crafting the online store platform. We use your colours, logos and any other preferences to tailor the website to your every need. Do you want to have the Custom Online Store run multiple times in one year? We can do it. Do you have multiple groups who need differing options? No problem! We work with your timelines, but our standard duration for a store to run is fourteen days. If someone in your group misses the deadlines, we’ll work with you to be flexible.

Once the store has closed, production will begin. The production process takes between 3-4 weeks. We have a team dedicated to ensuring that your customised apparel is top quality. We individually package each order, making it easy for you to hand out the assigned packages to each person. We're all about saving you time!  

The final piece of the puzzle, delivery. We have option: we can deliver straight to the organiser's door, we can transport the apparel to your school or club, and we can ship individually to each purchaser. Using reliable couriers, we aim to have your clothing with you long before your deadline. Pick-up or delivery, you let us know.

We hope this blog post has helped you understand the advantages of our Custom Online Store Program. If we’ve piqued your interest, give our office a call to chat more. All our contact information is on our website. We love what we do here at vbs and will continue to strive to simplify the lives of our customers. For more information about all things vbs, keep an eye on our blog! 

The 2025 Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals are right around the corner! That’s why for this week, the team here at vbs apparel wanted to give their best pieces of advice to the newbies attending the competition in 2025. We know it can be daunting, not knowing what to expect. It can be equally exciting and nerve-wracking. Therefore, we’ve combined our best pieces of advice to act as your field guide for this event.

(Psst: Did you miss the 2025 Nationals Merch Presale? Not to worry! We will be selling Nationals merchandise in Fredericton, Ottawa, Winnipeg and throughout all the Edmonton tournaments!)

The first tip we will give you is to buy your merchandise on the practice day. The practice day is the best time to organise everything before you play. On the tournament days, you’ll want to focus on your games, not be distracted by wanting to get your hands on a new flash hoodie. Make sure you get to the merchandise booth early; we do our best to keep the lines moving but no one wants to get stuck waiting at the back of a long line.

For players attending the Edmonton tournaments at the Edmonton Expo Centre, make sure you take note of the information booth. This booth will have people who can help you with inquiries and finding your way around. Any questions you might have about the tournament, they can answer for you. This is a great resource, so make sure you utilise it. The centre is bigger than you probably expect, so getting lost or disorientated can be quite common!

The days here at Nationals are lengthy. Bringing a portable charger for your phone and headphones is essential. It won’t be easy to find a wall outlet to charge your phone so a portable charger can be a lifesaver. As for your headphones, what would you do without a bit of music to pump you up before that final game? On that note, remember to bring lots of snacks and pack a Gatorade– or several. This tournament will be taxing, staying hydrated and fed is important. You want to make sure you are ready to play your best.

Between games, go outside and explore other courts. It’s an awesome opportunity to be at Nationals, make sure you embrace it. You might even get a glimpse of the opposition playing. While we’re talking about embracing the Nationals spirit, make sure you take advantage of every opportunity for fun! Volleyball Canada sure will be, they’ve created theme days for each tournament, for players to dress up and snap a lot of pictures! There is a different theme at every tournament. Our tip for this is simply to do your research and have your costume prepared. We heard something about Pajamas, Tie Dye, Sport Jersey Day, and Neon / 80s.

Our last tip is to have fun! Maybe it’s a bit cheesy, but it’s true. You play your best when you enjoy yourself. This is an exceptional chance to make memories and achieve great things with your teammates. Lastly, don’t forget to show appreciation for your coaches and parent helpers. They give up their time to support and help you succeed. The team here at vbs apparel wishes you luck, and we hope you have a wonderful tournament.

About the Design:  

2025’s design is all about bringing the nation together! Every year, Nationals is a cross-country, all-province-and-territory party bringing together athletes from across the nation. When you’re hosting the largest youth sporting event in Canada, only something as big as the Canadian map can reflect the excitement, pride, and enthusiasm of 20,000+ athletes at the peak of their skill. 

This week we had the chance to sit down with our talented Marketing and Communications senior manager Carolina Tancon to chat all about the process for designing this year’s national’s apparel. 

We learned that this process starts months prior to the events. The concept stage begins as far back as November the year before, when Carolina and our graphic design team work in tandem with Volleyball Canada to conjure up fresh themes and ideas. Choosing the right concept is a delicate balance between creating something unique and yet still cohesive with the existing Nationals apparel. Unique, trendy and long-lasting are all words that came to mind during this blueprint phase. 

Expressing her passion for this project, Carolina says, “My favourite thing about the Nationals merch is seeing people wearing it after the fact. I think it’s really cool to see that people are proud at the event but when their pride continues afterwards, that is ultimately a goal of mine”. Achieving this comes with consciously factoring in colour choices and the technical details of the design. The effort and care that goes into this entire process is made worth it when we see players still wearing their Nationals apparel at other competitions year-round. 

We always try to pay homage to Volleyball Canada’s national team by using overlapping elements, including number fonts, logos and VC’s establishing date. The theme for 2025 was Canadian pride. “We wanted to create a design that would connect all of these teams, from the west coast to the east coast, and everywhere in-between” says Carolina. Ultimately, we landed on a classic map of Canada, integrating a volleyball net to represent the nation-wide reach of the Nationals event. 

A lot of time is spent curating a unique colour palette every year. Colours that do well at previous competitions are brought back in varying versions, like the forest green crewneck sweater from last year, which is back in a hoodie version for 2025. A new, never-used-before colour in this year’s palette is our classic pink, which was a smash hit with our models during the apparel photoshoot. Each year, we make sure to select a few Nationals apparel colours that are exclusively available during the *PRESALE*.

About the *PRESALE*: 

The *PRESALE* for Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals event merchandise opens on March 18th on volleyballstuff.net. The *PRESALE* is a great way to ensure you can grab the apparel you want in your colour and size. Don’t worry, we’ll have well-stocked booths at each Nationals event, but the *PRESALE* is the best way to guarantee you’ll get your colour and size before the booth starts selling out! It also means not having to wait or waste your down-time waiting in line. You can show up to the event already decorated in your trendy merchandise! 

Why else should you shop the presale? There are apparel items that are exclusively available during presale and no other time! These include the pink crewneck, ash long sleeve, royal blue hoodie, and the maroon quarter zip.  

Never accidentally swap sweaters with your teammates again! Exclusively during the *PRESALE*, you can add your name and number to your merchandise. This customization perk won’t be available at the events.

We’re super excited to see everyone at Nationals this year. Remember skip the line, shop the *PRESALE*! 

2023 North American Indigenous Games

The North American Indigenous Games are a multi-sport cultural and athletics gathering, promoting unity, heritage, and teamwork for young indigenous athletes from across North America. For the 2023 NAIG held in Halifax, vbs apparel was proud to outfit three provincial delegations: Team British Columbia, New Brunswick, and Northwest Territories.

For Team BC, we designed and produced their entire team gear package! Aside from their ceremony jackets, shirts, and accessories, we also designed their competition uniforms for 14+ sports.

We also decked out Team NB and Team NT in team gear as well; accessories, shirts, jackets, and more — apparently the Team NB Hoodie we made was a hot ticket swapping item at the end of the event!

Photo credit: Team BC NAIG flickr

Greater Vernon 2022/2023 BC Winter Games

BC’s premier intra-provincial multi-sport competition was a great showcase for all of the event services we can provide. As the Official Merchandise Supplier, we not only designed and produced multiple lines of merchandise and apparel – including a limited edition collaboration with indigenous artist David Wilson Sookinakin – we also took care of their volunteer apparel, mission staff apparel, and all their online and in-person sales.

Some of the other national and provincial sports organizations and events we’ve been proud to supply include:

• Softball Canada U17 Girls Fast-Pitch National Championships
• Indigenous Sport and Wellness Ontario’s All-Nations Volleyball Showcase
• Volleyball Canada Beach National Championships
• Volleyball Manitoba
• Athletics Manitoba
• Volleyball Yukon
• 2022 Canada Summer Games – Beach Volleyball uniforms for 8 provincial delegations
• Alberta Hockey

If you’re with a National Sports Organization or Provincial Sports Organization, we can make fulfilling your apparel and merchandise needs simple. Some of the key services that we’ve heard our previous NSO/PSO clients say they value most include our clear communication, our resourcefulness in managing multiple supply chains to make sure nothing interferes with delivering your gear on time, and the eye-catching designs and premium apparel we can deliver to make your athletes stand out from the crowd. Not to mention the enthusiasm and sales we can generate as merchandise supplier for your events!

With our extensive experience providing decorated apparel, merchandise, and sales logistics to Provincial and National Sports Organizations, you can be sure that we will be the reliable apparel partner you are looking for. We’ve been happy to contribute to the success of many National and Provincial Sports Organizations in the past, and we look forward to continuing to do so in the future! Contact us today to discuss what we can do for you!

We’re game for whatever size event you’re hosting, large or small. As an example, we’ve recently finished the 2024 Volleyball Canada Youth National Championships, taking place in 4 cities across the nation with over 20,000 participants. Read all about what it takes to sell merch for the largest youth sporting event in the nation here; but over the summer, we’ve also taken on smaller—but no less exciting– events, like Volleyball Canada’s Canada Cup Indoor, and the U17 Girls National Fastpitch Softball Championships. We love meeting excited attendees at events like these, and we can’t wait to see what we can do for you!

In our 7 years of providing merchandise to the Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals, we’ve grown almost as invested as you in the excitement of your achievements. We’re all about helping you celebrate your success, and we love being a part of the Volleyball Canada team and journey. The volleyball Nationals medalist apparel store is a great way to show off your wins, your achievements, and the players, coaches, and supporters who made it all happen. Click the link below to get started today!

Whew! How about them 2024 Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals, huh? A solid month of non-stop volleyball action, 4 cities, 1,500+ teams, and over 20,000 of the most excited young volleyball athletes, coaches, and supporters we’ve ever seen. We at Volleyball Stuff and vbs apparel had so much fun chasing volleyball athletes across the country, from Ottawa and Fredericton, to Richmond and Edmonton, helping to make this year’s Nationals an event to be remembered.

While hundreds of you were playing on the courts, we were just outside the gymnasiums (or just inside, as we were in Ottawa!) running our legs off to keep up with the demand for shirts, sweaters, accessories, and hype! It takes a lot of work and a lot of energy to keep up with your excitement during Nationals, but it’s all worth it to see young volleyball athletes achieving their goals, making memories, and pushing the sport forward in Canada.

We started the month in Fredericton and Ottawa, where the Under 14 Girls and Boys got the month’s tournaments started. Our booth staff might still have their ears ringing from being stationed inside the gymnasium in Ottawa, but we’d never dream of asking you to quiet down the excitement. Congratulations to the medalists of the Fredericton and Ottawa events!

Next up was Richmond, BC, where the Under 14 Girls took to the west coast courts. It was especially rewarding for us to see so many teams and supporters there who we’ve been privileged to build relationships with over many years. Congratulations to the medalists!

Richmond

Photo credit: Ottawa Sports Photography

And finally, the biggest event of the year, the festival event in Edmonton! From May 15 to 26, the volleyball action was non-stop as the teams of the 14UB, 15U, 16U, 17U, and 18U categories battled it out in three tournaments, 6 halls, and up to a mind-boggling 56 courts at a time. You might have only been in Edmonton for one of the three tournaments, but we were there for two weeks, from start to finish, taking over the Edmonton Expo Centre with you. It was real party atmosphere! In between heat-pressing new merch, restocking, and slinging shirts to you (with additional thanks to Pepper the Polar Bear for helping us keep up with the demand!), we loved to see you bringing the heat. Theme days, jump contests, and the highs and lows of the most important competition of the year—we’re still trying to come down from the excitement.

Edmonton

Photo credit: Ottawa Sports Photography

Photo credit: Ottawa Sports Photography

We loved seeing you and your families, fans, and supporters at this year’s Nationals events. Did you have loved ones watching via the livestreams who still want a way to participate in the fun? Or maybe you were so busy killing it on the courts that you didn’t get a chance to swing by the merch booth to grab something to commemorate your achievements? Don’t worry, you still have a chance!

**The Nationals Merchandise Post Sale is now live, running from May 26 to June 19** We put a lot of thought and love into our Nationals merchandise design each year, and we don’t want anyone who wants a piece of the action to miss out. So click the link below and act now to secure your memories of this year’s Nationals. Congratulations and well done to all the 2024 Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals athletes!

*** The 2024 Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals may be over, but you still have a chance to grab this year’s merch! The Post Sale is live, running from May 26 to June 19 at 2:00 PM MDT. Click here to order your gear! ***

Have you checked out the new Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals merch yet? Or maybe you’ve already received your presale order, and now you’re wondering about how we do it? For all you volleyball enthusiasts out there, here’s a look behind the scenes of how we design the Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals merchandise every year.

We’ve been at this since 2018, when Volleyball Stuff became the official merchandise provider for Volleyball Canada and we set up our first booth at Youth Nationals, the largest youth sporting event in Canada, with over 1,500 teams and 20,000+ athletes competing across the nation. Each year, we start the design process for Nationals as early as 6 months in advance of the May tournaments, to make sure that each year’s design is trendy, relevant, attractive, and something the youth will actually want to wear. We make sure the most popular apparel colours from previous years are on offer again—last year’s best-selling Sandstone crewneck sweater becomes this year’s Sandstone hoodie, for example—and our goal is that each year’s designs flow into the next’s in one cohesive style.

That doesn’t mean we don’t like shaking things up! At vbs apparel and our sister company Lubdub Apparel, we’ve taken on a trio of talented graphic designers in the past couple years, and we wanted to use their talents to push in a new, more illustrative direction. So Sarah, Melody, and Maria set out on their initial sketches with the inspiration of a vintage concert t-shirt—large, minimalist graphics on the back, and calling back to the foundation of the Canadian Volleyball Association in 1953 on the front chest logo. We always want to be sure there’s a link between Canada’s elite national teams and the young athletes who look up to them as well, so we’ve made sure that the typeface and graphic style of the Youth Nationals merch flow into the style you see on the uniforms of Canada’s national team. We want to foster the talent of Canada’s future top athletes—and this is just a small detail that helps you dream big!

And as you can see, they look great! We’re so proud of the work we put into these designs each year, and we’re so excited to share them with you. The presale period for the 2024 Volleyball Canada Youth Nationals merchandise may be over, but you still have the chance to pick up your piece of the excitement at each of the Nationals events in Ottawa (May 2-5), Fredricton (May 2-5), Richmond (May 9-12), and the festival event in Edmonton (May 15-26). We’ll be there slinging shirts at a booth at each event, taking in all the action with you. Good luck to all the competitors at this year’s nationals! We can’t wait to cheer you on!