Canada 6-0 in World Volleyball

Team Canada certainly knows how to use a broom, as they swept the weekend in FIVB World Volleyball action at the SaskTel Centre.

Canada beat Portugal 3-1 Sunday to go 3-0 this weekend and improve to 6-0 on the World stage.

Sets were 24-26, 25-15, 25-23, 25-21 for the red and white.

On Saturday they took care of China 3-0 and Friday beat Korea 3-0.

“I’m very happy with the guys,” said Canada head coach Glenn Hoag. “I’ve been really pushing the guys hard to train for Rio (Summer Olympics), so there was a little fatigue in the third match.”

Toontje Van Lankvelt had 16 points, followed by Nicholas Hoag with 11.

It was a drama-filled match for the Portugese as players Joao Fidalgo, Alexandre Ferreira, and coach Francisco Santos all got red cards because of a battle with the referee in the first set.

Just before that happened, coach Santos was already in a battle with the referee as he got a yellow card for the classic finger wave.

“Portugal is getting better every week to play against,” said Hoag. “We expected a tough match, so we weren’t surprised they took a set.”

There were 1,771 fans out for Sunday’s game.

“Saskatoon had great fans and the tournament was very well organized,” said Hoag. “We’ve had so much fun and I hear, I have to come back fishing with Gavin (Schmitt), he told me the fishing is great here.”

Although the hometown star Schmitt didn’t play again on Sunday, he said it was so much fun to be in front of family and friends.

“The fans picked up the noise level throughout the weekend,” he said. “It really did give me chills to have my hometown cheering me on.”

Team Canada is in Finland this weekend.

These matches are one of the last tune ups before the Summer Olympics in Rio, Brazil in August.