TL;DR - no, each season offers different programming and we'd love to have you back out on the courts with us!

All Stryker programs will vary across seasons because they’ll often be run by different coaches and will be attended by a different group of athletes. While Stryker has set developmental objectives across each of our programs for each of the core competencies of the sport, the drill, exercises, and techniques used by our coaches will vary based on their own experiences along with their assessment of the athletes in the specific program. There is no set curriculum for Stryker programs, so if you attend an Elevate Volleyball program in the Fall and then again in the Winter, they will certainly be different experiences that will help develop your athlete’s foundational skills through lots of court time, mentorship, guidance, and physical activity. Because our development categories of Ignite, Elevate, Amplify, and Launchpad are mainly based on age, we’ve found that after participating for multiple seasons in the same category, the athlete is often ready to progress to the next level at the same time as they grow older into the next group.

We've created Ignite, Elevate, Amplify, and Launchpad in a way where our athletes can be a part of these programs for many seasons in a row, and they'll likely never experience the same practice twice.

For our athletes in grades 7 and up, we offer two different development paths.  The first is the program called Amplify, and it is designed for athletes with up to two years of experience in the sport. The second program is called Launchpad, and it is designed for athletes with two or more years of experience in the sport. At a high level, if your young athlete can (1) overhand serve consistently with >50% of them going in, (2) bump and set back-and-forth with a partner and get 30+ in a row, and (3) know the various positions on the court by heart and have some familiarity with the flow of the game, then they’d likely be a good fit for Launchpad.  More details on our programs can be found here, and we even have a couple good videos to show how all our programs fit together.

Whether you pursue our Amplify or Launchpad programs, also please know that our coaches have the autonomy and independence to group the athletes accordingly so that everyone is training at the right level. Many of our Amplify and Launchpad programs run at the same time on two different courts, which gives us the flexibility to move athletes to where they will have the best experience and be challenged at the right level. We need to be responsive to whoever is signed up for the program, and sometimes we see a Launchpad that is a little less experienced and an Amplify with some superstars, and we certainly adjust to whoever we have in the program.

If you're looking for more touches than a weekly program, Stryker's Volleyball League is a great option as it provides for a 2-hr gameday each week along with up to three additional optional training sessions. It's quite a popular program of ours and certainly provides the best "bang-for-your-buck" if your family schedule permits more than one session a week.

When thinking about Stryker's Launchpad program vs our League, the main difference is the amount of court time offered. For Launchpad, the weekly sessions are generally 1.5-2.0 hrs in duration. For League, we provide one gameday per week (2 hours on Sunday), and then up to three additional optional training sessions throughout the week (~5 hrs additional training). So if your schedule allows, your young athlete could be on the court with us four days a week.

Given the experience your young athlete has, they would be a good candidate for Launchpad, or if they join our League, they would likely be placed in our older and more experienced division. With the number of court-time hours offered through the League, it is our best "bang-for-your-buck" program, but if your family schedule or budget is a little more limited, then our Launchpad program at would be a great fit.

We do not provide any private coaching lessons, and we operate out of gyms we rent all over town so that we can provide a community-based approach instead of owning our own warehouse in the industrial district. The costs for a one-on-one coaching session are typeically very high, somewhere in the range of $100-150/hour depending on the organization, coach, and location.

We do, however, have low coach-to-athlete ratios in our Amplify and Launchpad Programs (Grades 7+), with no more than 8 athletes per coach. Our programs are designed to build strong foundational skills through exercises and gameplay, while also fostering new friendships and a love of physicality and sport.

The technical directors for Stryker’s volleyball and basketball programs each have more than 20 years of experience coaching at all levels, and playing volleyball in the college league, university circuit, and internationally as well.

In any of Stryker’s programs, the top athletes in the group regularly and consistently demonstrate a very high level of coordination and athleticism.  We love seeing those attributes in the young athletes we serve, and having parents also recognize this shows us that you're thinking about the continued development of your young athlete in the right way.

None of the athletes in the Volleyball Launchpad or League programs are first-timers. There is certainly a distribution of skills and experiences within the group of athletes, but no more so than any typical club or school team. Stryker’s technical directors regularly observe these programs and debrief with coaches afterwards to ensure we have athletes signed up for the right programs. Further, it is quite regular that the skills demonstrated by the athletes during the first two sessions will differ dramatically from the rest of the program because many of them will be feeling conservative, self-conscious, and timid among a new group of other athletes and coaches. As these feelings subside and as the athletes continue to re-engage their skills with Stryker’s coaches and exercises, the quality of the programs always makes a step-change in the positive direction.

Stryker programs are designed primarily for competing against your past self, not against others.  Our approach to development is based on our athletes having the mindset to be better than they were yesterday, and while some development can certainly come from playing with exceptional players, the vast majority of development comes through personal drive, motivation and self-discipline.

For the athletes we serve who are the best in the group, they certainly have to bring self-discipline to continue developing their skills, and more importantly, it presents them an opportunity for accelerated development of leadership and role modelling skills. Being an exceptional athlete begins in small part with technical capabilities, and certainly ends in large part with court presence, gameplay knowledge, and being a person that lifts up their teammates and that those teammates want to rally around. Even in the volleyball careers of Stryker’s technical directors, there have been times where they’ve been the "worst on the team" and had the chance to develop their technical skills quite rapidly, and times when they’ve been the "best on the team" and had the chance to develop their leadership skills quite rapidly. Both of these environments will serve your athlete very well, and in hindsight, there is an incredible opportunity to recognizing those environments and intentionally leveraging them supercharge the growth and development of your athlete.

While not common, we occasionally come across some athletes in our Ignite and Elevate programs who have had significant exposure to sports. Sometimes this means that even though they might be younger and/or smaller, their experience, skill, coordination, and most importantly, coachability, mean that they could play with older athletes who better match their experience. In this case, Stryker will gladly work with you to find the right program for your young athlete, and we will also regularly engage with parents where we see an opportunity for an athlete to join a different group that is more appropriate for their level of skill.

Should you find yourself in this situation, please engage the Stryker Coach at the end of the session to seek their assessment.  Then, if you would like to transfer to a different program, please email us at info@strykersports.ca and we'll help make the arrangements.

At Stryker, we’re all about providing sport opportunities for the widest range of young athletes out there. In a world where youth sport has become an all-or-nothing environment which has been over-professionalized at far too young an age, we believe that it is more important than ever to enable kids to be on the court with other kids and caring coaches. We have high confidence that we're creating and fostering a highly inclusive environment for all athletes, regardless of their skill, time commitment, financial status, gender identity, or neurological function.

We regularly coach young athletes who are on the spectrum, and some of them have gone on to become Stryker coaches as well. Further, we're proud to operate all our programs as co-ed because especially when learning a sport or training as a relative beginner, attributes such as size, height or gender matter much less than attributes such as coachability, humility, work ethic, and overall energy.

For any parent or guardian of a young athlete with these characteristics, the biggest request we have for you is the same request that we make of all parents and guardians: to help the athletes understand the importance of being coachable, following instructions, and trying new things. We believe strongly in the power of sport, physicality, training structure and the friendships / camaraderie that come with it, and if you’re able to find one of our programs that fit well with your family schedule, we’d love to have your young athlete out on the courts with us.

Thanks so much for reaching out - it's wonderful to hear how much your young athlete already loves volleyball!

At this time, our volleyball programs begin at Grade 3. We follow Volleyball Canada’s recommended minimum age guidelines for skill development, which are designed to ensure kids are set up for success as they start learning the fundamentals of the game in a fun, developmentally appropriate way. We know that can feel a little far off when there’s early interest, though! In the meantime, anything that builds general movement skills (throwing, catching, coordination, and playing with balls in an unstructured, playful way) can be a great foundation for when they’re ready to join.

If you're interested, we’d be happy to keep you in the loop through our mailing list so that you can be ready to get them onto the court as soon as they’re in Grade 3. We do start basketball at Grade 1, as it is easier to scale the game to the child - so if they’re keen to play basketball too, we’d love to have them out!

Volleyball is typically a late-entry sport where we see many, many athletes join in grades 7 through 10. We certainly have various programs that I think could be a good fit for your athlete’s pursuit of volleyball training and development, so let me explain a bit about Stryker. Also, here's a quick video that explains what we're all about (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGzBEd-rQT8).

Stryker is a community-based sports training and development organization that delivers inclusive and accessible co-ed programs for basketball, volleyball, beach volleyball, and ultimate frisbee for young athletes in grades 1-12. Our mission is simple: get as many kids on the court as possible. We focus on fun, development, and belonging, creating spaces where athletes of all skill levels can grow, build confidence, and stay active.

Our typical programs run seasonally (Fall for Sep-Dec, Winter for Jan-Mar, and Spring for Apr-Jun), and we run our programs on a weekly basis for 10 sessions (typically over the course of 11-12 weeks, accounting for holidays). Our sessions range in duration from 60-120 minutes, and while ~75% of the session time is spent on skills, drills, and exercises, we also bring in gameplay to each session for the final ~25% of the time. Beyond our weekly development programs, we also run a recreational volleyball league in each season, and this league is designed for athletes in grades 7 and up. Apart from these seasonal programs that overlap with the school year, we also run week-long summer camps throughout July and August. Stryker has been around for nearly 20 years, and in any given year, Stryker and our non-profit Stryker Sports Foundation serves over 3,000 young athletes across many facilities in Calgary with a team of around 60 coaches.

For your young athlete (who we’re assuming is relatively new to volleyball), we would suggest our Amplify Volleyball program.  You can see all of the dates, times, and locations we offer this program at our website (if you search or filter down to just Amplify Volleyball, you'll see the condensed list). Between this brief description and the video above (and our website, of course), we hope this gives you a better idea of what Stryker is all about.

Co-ed for Boys and Girls in Grades 7-12