CBC Archives SportsSixteen of the best senior boys high school volleyball teams in B.C. are in the central interior city of Prince George this week, competing in a provincial championship tournament for medium-sized schools. Elite players in Prince George, B.C., have no hometown post-secondary option to keep them on the courtJason Peters · CBC News · Posted: Nov 26, 2025 11:22 PM EST | Last Updated: 3 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Members of the Duchess Park Condors senior boys volleyball team discuss strategy during a Wednesday match at the double-A provincial championship tournament being held in Prince George, B.C. (Jason Peters/CBC)Sixteen of the best senior boys high school volleyball teams in B.C. are in Prince George this week to compete in a provincial championship tournament for medium-sized schools.Four of the teams didn’t have to travel far to get to the event. Senior boys volleyball is so strong in Prince George right now that the hometown Duchess Park Condors, College Heights Cougars, Cedars Christian Eagles and D.P. Todd Trojans all qualified for provincials on their own merits.But if the players on these Prince George teams want to play college or university volleyball after high school graduation, they’ll have to do it elsewhere, because neither of Prince George’s two post-secondary institutions — the College of New Caledonia (CNC) nor the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) — offer volleyball programs.In the eyes of College Heights coach Jay Guillet, the lack of post-secondary volleyball in Prince George is an unfortunate situation for local players who have the talent and desire to keep playing beyond high school.“For some of the kids, high school is where they stop, because to go away and live in another community, another city, is too expensive, so they go on to other things,” Guillet said on CBC’s Daybreak North.Guillet said there’s also a long history of Prince George players moving on to play college or university volleyball elsewhere. Some, he said, have even gone on from those schools to play professionally in Europe.The Duchess Park Condors, in white, are one of four Prince George teams competing at the double-A boys high school volleyball provincial championship tournament in their home city this week. (Jason Peters/CBC)Cost keeping UNBC from adding volleyball to its lineupThere wasn’t always a post-secondary volleyball void in Prince George. CNC, the local college, had men’s and women’s volleyball teams for several years, but the program became a victim of budget cuts back in 2005.UNBC, which was established in 1994, went with basketball and soccer as its varsity sports. Loralyn Murdoch, director of athletics and recreation at UNBC, said the school didn’t get involved in volleyball at the time because it didn’t want to step on CNC’s toes.UNBC has men’s and women’s basketball and soccer teams. They compete in U Sports, the highest level of university athletics in Canada. But there’s still no volleyball at UNBC. The primary reason, Murdoch said, is the price tag.“In regards to adding a sport at the Canada West and U Sport level, the cost associated with that, being from Prince George, is about $830,000 annually to add a team sport with both genders,” Murdoch said. “So that in itself is a big and main reason why UNBC is not looking to add any team sports at this point in time.”Murdoch acknowledged that the possible addition of volleyball at UNBC has been a topic of discussion in Prince George for years.“It’s not something that we have disregarded,” she said. “We are fully supportive of all sports, high school sports, and volleyball has done an amazing job here in Prince George.”Guillet said Murdoch is “absolutely right” about the money issue being a tough one to overcome, and he pointed to McGill University in Montreal cutting 25 of its team sports this week due to the unsustainable costs of continuing to operate them.Still, if there was a way, Guillet would like to see Prince George volleyball players wearing hometown colours at the next level.“We have all these local talented kids, and great coaches, and a great [city] volleyball program and a great supporting community for volleyball,” he said. “If the money was there, it would be great.” At the high school provincial tournament, Duchess Park is ranked second, College Heights fourth, Cedars Christian 10th, and D.P. Todd 16th. Guillet said D.P. Todd was a top-five team all season but is ranked lower at provincials because of a loss to Cedars Christian in the north central zone bronze-medal game.The double-A boys volleyball provincial championship match takes place Saturday afternoon at CNC.ABOUT THE AUTHORJason Peters is a journalist based in Prince George, B.C., on the territory of the Lheidli T’enneh. He can be reached at jason.peters@cbc.ca.With files from Daybreak North
Prince George is a hotbed of volleyball talent, coach says, but it’s missing a key stepping stone
