ATHABASCA — How do you top a stellar post-secondary athletic career? You get picked up by the Canadian national team.
Athabasca's Max Elgert, 23, recently graduated from the University of Alberta (U of A) with his degree in electrical engineering, but his success on the volleyball court with the Golden Bears over the course of his post-secondary career, has him considering some more time with the sport in Europe as a professional player.
“I'm training with the national team program this summer and the training centre is in Gatineau, Quebec,” Elgert said from there in a May 7 interview. “The Next Gen team, which is kind of like the second team, is mostly younger guys but then the 'A' Team is also here as well for training.”
Elgert finished his career second in Golden Bear’s history for assists and was a Canada West first team all-star for the second time.
“We won the national championship this year which is pretty cool,” he said. “That was my first one at the university level and, ya, it was a really, really nice way to finish it off.”
At the 2022 U SPORTS Men's Volleyball Championship in Winnipeg March 25 to 27, Elgert had 35 assists to help his team defeat Trinity Western University in three out of four games — 25-22, 12-25, 26-24, and 25-19 — and with the win, the Golden Bears took home their first gold medal since 2015 and finished with an overall record of 29-7.
“It was an interesting format this year, but it was pretty exciting, I think, to get a new team pretty much every match during playoffs,” said Elgert.
In 2020, everything shut down so there were no more competitions, and in 2021 Elgert and the Golden Bears only played Alberta teams, six times each, against Calgary, Grant MacEwan and Mount Royal, but it was enough to launch them into the Canada West Conference once restrictions lifted, where they achieved a perfect 4-0 record.
And now he is in Gatineau until August playing for the Next Gen team and has his sights set on being picked up by a European team.
“It feels great having some results this year with the university team,” he said. "It's definitely been a lot of hard work all the way since high school.”
Elgert has an agent and hopes to sign a professional contract with a team in Germany or France before the end of summer.
“That's where most of the competitive leagues are; the leagues that are willing to take on foreign players,” said Elgert. “I'd like to end up maybe in Germany or France I think would be a pretty cool spot to start out.”
He’s practical, however, noting there is less demand for setters than for attackers.
“I did attack a little bit in high school, but physically, I'm not quite big enough to play professionally as an attacker.”
The Volleyball Canada website notes the Next Gen team will be competing in the NORCECA (North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation) Pac Final 6 in Mexico July 1 to 10 and the Senior Pam Am Cup qualifier Aug. 5-14 in Gatineau.
“My brother (Sam) is in Kamloops. He plays at Thompson River University there and (sister) Abby plays soccer in Indiana,” he said. “I was the closest to home, so I probably had my parents around the most but if I'm overseas next year, they'll probably be taking more trips to Kamloops and Indiana.”
The 'A' team is working towards 2024 in Paris and if there were an injuries or something else which allowed Elgert to move up, he would gladly take it, but it would be a rare thing to happen, so he’s focusing on Europe.
“The way the European stuff works is, it's more of like your club and you would play there from September until April usually and then you would come back to your home country to play for your national team in the summers,” said Elgert. “So, similar to how NHL players would play with their club team, like say the (Edmonton) Oilers and then if they were from Russia, they would join the Russian team for any kind of world championships or Olympics.”
Elgert noted he and his siblings can get competitive when they’re together.
“My brother and I will get into it sometimes playing beach volleyball in the summers and stuff and we'll play soccer with my sister,” he said. “She's a lot more skilled than us but we can hold our own physically, so I think it frustrates her sometimes.”
As for his parents, Colleen, and Greg, Elgert knows they have his back.
“They support me with all of it, I think as long as I'm enjoying it, and happy to see me continue my career.”
