OVA News

Chin Yang is six-foot-two with an athletic build. As a teenager in his native China, he was much taller than the average Chinese male, but still he had to work hard to get selected for the country’s national volleyball team.

“I had to prove myself with tricks and skills to get onto the team because I was not tall enough to make it (otherwise)!” chuckles Yang. “Those days it was a little more easy. If I had to try now … hmm … I don’t stand a chance!”

While playing pro volleyball may no longer be on his agenda, reaching a goal he sets his mind to never seems to be a problem for Yang; that’s clear when you look at his many achievements since arriving in Canada 20 years ago, leaving all that he had attained on the court and off back home. “I left China because of the Tiananmen Square incident … I didn’t like the way the government behaved,” he says, still upset about the 1989 massacre of thousands of protesters in Beijing.

…In the process of building Canuck Sports Stuff (Toronto) Inc., Yang has also stimulated the volleyball playing community in Toronto and neighbouring cities, with help from his business associate, Mark Heese, a bronze medalist in beach volleyball at the Atlanta Olympics (1996). Dubbed as the largest volleyball equipment retail store, Canuck Stuff, as it is popularly known, also sponsors many players.

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Gloria Elayadathusseril