Sept. 15, 2025: Canada stunned the top-ranked team in its pool, Japan, on Monday at the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship in Quezon City, Philippines.

With the 3-0 (25-20, 25-23, 25-22) sweep of Japan, Canada is solidly into the next round with two wins, while a shocked Japan (0-2) will not advance. Canada also moved up to eighth in the world ranking.

"This game was an important step for our guys – they executed really well; blocking was exceptional," said head coach Dan Lewis.

Canada led in attack points (40-33), dominated in blocking points (10-2), but Japan did earn more points from the service line (7-3).

"Japan has the potential to serve really well, and we didn’t give them any major runs of points when they put the pressure on. And at times our serving game faltered a bit, but our sideout was so strong that it gave us the availability to not be penalized too much for that … our serving game would rise back up and we were putting a lot of pressure on them."

Lewis continued: "Setter Luke (Herr) did a really good job of distributing the ball today and we were able to hit out of a few difficult situations. But maybe the most important factor is that we kept our attack errors low and made Japan earn the points today. So that was really crucial and I’m just super excited for the guys.”

Opposite Sharone Vernon-Evans was match top scorer with 14 points, including the winner, and veteran captain Nick Hoag delivered 13 points for Canada. Ran Takahashi was Japan’s top scorer with 11 (nine kills, two aces)

The last two Pool G games, between Canada and Türkiye for first place in the pool, and between Japan and Libya for a first win and third place, are set to be played on Wednesday, September 17, with Canada's match at 14:00 local time or 2 am EDT.

Canada and Turkiye will be the two teams from this pool to compete in the round of 16. Earlier in the day, Türkiye also took their second win by beating Libya.

Matches are live on VBTV and CBC Sports (in Canada).
 
Team Canada
Landon Currie, Coldstream, BC
Max Elgert, Athabasca, AB
Jesse Elser, Calgary, AB
Daenan (Kofi) Gyimah, Scarborough, ON
Luke Herr, Winnipeg, MB
Isaac Heslinga, Orangeville, ON
Nicholas Hoag, Sherbrooke, QC (captain)
Jackson Howe, Calgary, AB
Xander Ketrzynski, Toronto, ON
Justin Lui, Pickering, ON
Fynn McCarthy, Lake Country, BC
Jordan Schnitzer, Surrey, BC
Sharone Vernon-Evans, Scarborough, ON
Jackson Young, Toronto, ON

Staff
Head Coach: Dan Lewis
Assistant Coach: João Paulo Bravo
Statistician: Lionel Bonnaure
Strength & Conditioning: Michael Cook
Athletic Therapist: Schad Richea
Chiropractor: Rémi Ouellette
Team Manager: Cassandra Nicol
High-Performance Director: Julien Boucher

Watch all matches on VBTV.

Volleyball Canada Media Contact:
Jackie Skender
jskender@volleyball.ca
Mobile: 613-794-7676