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2020-05-17
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FAQ

Basics

What format do you play?
For the most part we use standard FIVB rules with a few modifications which you can find in our rules listed on this website under the ‘Rules and Policies’ link. It can also be downloaded in the ‘Downloads’ section (look for the document titled ‘No Frills Rules’)!

Teams sign up to play in the division of their choice (for a description of each level of play, see the document – ‘Levels of Play’ in the ‘Downloads’ section). Divisions are set up so that you play your games on the same night every week.

What’s it like to play in your league and what are typical game times?
When you are scheduled you come to play. There’s no waiting around. You come to the gym; you will either set up or tear down the net depending if you are playing the early game (usually at 6:40 p.m.) or late (after 8 - 8:15 p.m.) game; you play your match and you leave, locking the doors behind you if there are no games after you. That’s it!

Games last at least 90 minutes (in most divisions) and players must be out of the gyms by 9:45 p.m for the late start (8 p.m or later) and 8:10 for the 6:40 p.m. match starts.

Where are games played?
Currently most of our games are played at various Vancouver School Board gymnasiums in the city of Vancouver.

When does the season start?
The season typically starts in the 1st week of October - look for exact dates on the 'Registration & Season Dates' page found under the Registration menu..

How long is the season?
The regular season is the combination of our Fall season and Winter seasons which extend from

October to
mid-April

The Winter season begins at the start of January. The 3^rd season is the Spring season which begins mid-April and goes to mid-June.

New teams will be welcome to join the league in December for the Winter season and again in March for the Spring season if they were unable to register in time for either of the two previous sessions.

The single-knockout playoffs start in very late November for the Fall season and in very late March or early April for the Winter season and early June for the Spring playoffs.

The very last game of the Fall-Winter season playoffs goes to mid-April.

Details

Below are a list of the most commonly asked questions about the league, or rules, our membership, our store and much more...

Explain What Happens When We Start A Game Short of A Full Complement of Players?

Explain the Skill Levels...

How Do You Determine When A Team Moves Up/Down A Skill Level?

How Long Is A Season?

How Come We Don't Always Get To Play All the Teams in the Division?

What Is The Age Range for Players To Be Allowed To Play In The League?

Explain How A Full Season Breaks Down?

How Do The Playoffs and Prizes Work?

What Is It Like To Play A Typical Game In Your League?

What Methods of Payment Do You Accept?

How Do You Post Scores?

What Nights Do You Play?

What Special Rules Does the NFVL Have?

How Do You Add or Modify Names in the Team Rosters?

How Can We Book Practice Time and Space? ...and Is There Any Cost For This?

How Did This League Start?

What format do you play?

What’s it like to play in your league and what are typical game times?

Where are games played?

When does the season start?

How long is the season?

Explain What Happens When We Start A Game Short of A Full Complement of Players?

If you have 5 players where there is 3 of one gender and 2 of the other you can start the game BUT you will be down 4-0 to start the first game if you follow the NFVL rules to the letter.

If you have 4 or less by the 10-minute mark after the scheduled start time, your team loses the first game of the match and you can play a 'game for fun' to the usual 25 points to completion if at 20-minute mark after scheduled game time, you are still at 4 players or less (or your player combination has only 1 person from one of the genders), you lose the second game by default. If this is still the case at the 30-minute mark, the team that's short loses the third game and the match.

At that point teams can choose to stick around and continue to play for fun (you're welcome to mix and match players from both teams!) until their allotted time is up or wrap it up and go home. For full details you can read more about this in our Rules (see item 5. Defaults:)

Explain the Skill Levels...

The 'Advanced' division (or skill level) are elite players who have teams who all can play all facets of the game at a high competitive level. University Level would be an 'A' level - sorry we don't offer play for this high a skill level. An 'Intermediate +' level is a balanced team who can play consistently and know a lot about positioning, positions and defences. For more info read about the descriptions on our 'Levels of Play' page. The majority of teams in this league seem to fall into the 'Intermediate' level.

How Do You Determine When A Team Moves Up/Down A Skill Level?

Most of our determinations are based on how a team is doing in the standings when we reach certain points throughout the season. It's not just based on the win-loss record however. We will also look at how close the game scores were. If a team lost a lot of matches 3-0, then they will likely be moved to a skill level lower than the one they are currently in, however, if a team has a losing record but showed competitiveness (e.g. losing many matches by 3-2 scores) then it's likely a team would stay in the same division despite their record.

Sometimes teams will get moved down in bunches as well. If there is a clear discrepancy between the top 2, 3 or even 4 teams vs the rest of the division then we may also consider a reconstruction of the divisions on that night to better fit the teams. Sometimes, for logistical reasons, we can't move a team even though it may make sense to do so. In those types of situations its usually because moving a team, even if 'justifiable', would create too much complexity for scheduling or inconvenience too many other teams.

How Long Is A Season?

The name "season" really is one, in the truest sense of the word!

A season is aligned with the seasons of the year. Fall, Winter and Spring. The league does not offer a Summer league. When the league offers a chance to pay and play a "FULL" season package, that includes the Fall and Winter seasons as one package but teams can opt to sign up for just one calendar season at a time as well - in fact that usually the option most teams pick.

The Fall and Winter seasons are typically each 8-9 weeks long with a 3-week playoff run at the end of both seasons - however that CAN vary. The Spring season is usually shorter and is only 10 weeks long which is comprised of 7 regular season games and 3 weeks of playoffs.

Schedules are released in 5-week blocks (except in the spring season) to allow the league to move teams to different divisions if they are either overpowering or being overpowered by the other teams in the division. This is maximize the potential for closer matches as the seasons progress...making play much more fun for ALL teams.

The playoffs at the end of the fall season will have smaller prizes offered while the one at the end of the Winter season will be the larger. You can go to the prizes menu to see what the current offered prizes are. The Fall season will around Christmas and the new Winter season begins in the New Year and wraps up in early-to-mid-April.

How Come We Don't Always Get To Play All the Teams in the Division?

A few years ago, many of the reps at that time agreed that it was better to play more "meaningful" games and less exhibition games. With a balanced schedules (where everyone plays everyone else in their own division an even amount of times), it does mean that all divisions would have to either be the same size or would need see some of them have more exhibition games to allow the other divisions to complete all their games.

Balanced schedules proved very limiting. By having an unbalanced schedule, it allows us to make all the divisions play the same amount of games but all games played would count in the standings. In other words, there wouldn't be any 'let's wait for the rest of the league to catch-up exhibition game nights'.

With unbalanced schedules however, it may also mean (mostly in the larger divisions) that you may not get to play some teams that are in your division at all!

The key with this decision was to have matches where teams were able to experience close games where on any given night any team could defeat any other team in the division. And the "best performing teams" would work their way to the top in the playoffs. So the decision to have unbalanced schedules, was adopted. But you may still see some balanced schedules made as that option hasn't been completely abolished.

What Is The Age Range for Players To Be Allowed To Play In The League?

Our age range is very broad. Anyone who is 19 years of age or older is welcome to play in this league. There are no other age caps.

Explain How A Full Season Breaks Down

The full coed, indoor volleyball season is now broken down into 3 "seasons". A Fall, Winter and Spring season. The Fall & Winter seasons are both typically 10 weeks long with an additional 3 weeks of playoffs each! The Spring season will have 7 weeks of play and 3 weeks of playoffs. The league offers a "FULL" season package where you can pay and sign up for the Fall and Winter programs at one time. Spring season always has registrations separately in late February-through- most of March of each year.

How Do The Playoffs and Prizes Work?

The playoffs now found in all 3 seasons. They go in December - January, late March - April and in June. Each playoff run is 3 weeks long and as long as your team wins each week, you stay in contention. If after two weeks of playoff games you haven't lost a match, you will find yourself in the division final where you will be playing for prize money. There is prize money offered to both teams that make it to the division final.

See 'Prizes' for information on what is offered to the top two teams in this year's upcoming playoffs for all 3 seasons.

What Is It Like To Play A Typical Game In Your League?

You play one team each week as per the online schedule. The match is officially over after one of the two teams wins 3 games of the match and the score is recorded at that point. Which means that a completed match will either end as a 3-0 win, 3-1 win or 3-2 win and should be posted as such in the Game Scores section where the winning team is asked to post their win.

Teams are only given one week to post their games before the system locks the game and scores cannot be posted afterwards. If teams want credit for their wins, they must get those scores posted inside that 7-day window. The losing teams of a match are also welcome to post the score if they see that the winning team has forgotten to post the score before the 7-day mark has been reached.

During a scheduled match, teams are welcome to stay until the end of their allotted time and just play for fun to complete the evening once the match is completed (if there is extra time left!)...however results that happen after a team wins a match are not included in the game scores. For example if Team 'A' wins the first 3 games of the 'best-of-5' match against Team 'B', the score gets posted as a 3-0 win EVEN IF Team 'B' wins the next two "fun" games after both teams agreed to stay and play for fun to play until they were out of time.

Games are played to 21 or 25 points each (must win by 2 or first team to 27 points, games to 21 are capped at 25 if teams can't win by 2). This can include the 5th game of a match UNLESS there is less than 20 minutes of time left (see the rules for exceptions to this). If there's between 19 to 11 minutes left in the allotted time, then you can play a match to 15 points with a cap to 17. With 10 minutes or less left, pack up if you're the last match of the night in that gym or just clear the court so that the next teams can come in and warm up IF there is another match scheduled after you. This is a little different in the playoffs though ..if you have less than 10 minutes left, you will need to determine a winner, so team will need to agree to play to 3, 5, 7 or 9 points depending on how much time they have left. A good rule of thumb is to 3 points if you only have 3 minutes left, 5 points for 5 minutes left...etc. Playoff games should never end in a tie.

What Methods of Payment Do You Accept?

Teams can choose to pay their fees by:

Credit Card
Cheque
Email Transfer
Money order
Paypal

(Note although we offer credit card payment as an option, there is an additional 4% surcharge from the credit card companies that you will be required to pay so we actually don't recommend paying by credit card!)

How Do You Post Scores?

Winning Teams of matches are counted on to post scores of the matches they won within 7 days after a game is played. If the losing teams sees that after the 5th day after the match that the score wasn't posted, they are welcome to post the results in order to allow both teams the opportunity to gain the full amount of points available rather than the single points offered to unreported matches. For more details about how to post scores, go to our specific instructions page found here.

What Nights Do You Play?

We offer evening divisions on Monday (Women's Night Mixer only), Tuesday (Coed 6s), Wednesday (Coed 6s) , Thursday (Coed & Women's 6s) and Friday (Men's Night Mixer only).

What Special Rules Does the NFVL Have?

We have a few! The most unique one is that we play a 'True Co-Ed' system where an equal amount of females and males are represented on the court at all times. For full details on the rest of our unique rules please visit our rules page or download the pdf.

How Do You Add or Modify Names in the Team Rosters?

The rosters need to be accessed from the Team Rep Login link. You use the username (is your first name (if you are a new team to the league) that you used when you created your player account) and password that you created when you originally registered your team.

A new window will open and one of the links in that window will allow you to edit your rosters (if you cannot login, contact the league so that they can make it accessible to you).

Of course before you can edit a roster you must create one so the first time you go into your unique, private administrator login area, click on the 'Team & Rosters' link (under the 'Sports' menu) and start adding names.

More details on how to do this and the exact links to click can be found here.

How Can We Book Practice Time and Space? ...and Is There Any Cost For This?

Unfortunately, we no longer offer practice time bookings. If we bring it back there will be a cost to use gym space for practice.

In the past, practice time blocks were usually limited to one hour. If we bring back practice time, you can email manager@nofrillsvolleyball.com to make arrangements.

How Did This League Start?

The league was originally a non-member program of the YMCA. In 2005, the decision was made that it would not continue in it's current form. The person who managed the league at that time, opted to make the league his own business in order to keep it alive.

Since then the league has operated as an independent league. The interesting twist was that the man who decided to take this project/business on was living in Red Deer Alberta at the time. Because he was operating the business from Alberta, he felt he couldn't offer a lot of extra services that would need 'hands on' attention.

He felt that he could rely only offer the grass-root basics...which was volleyball...just the game. You go, you play, you go home, you post your score and you repeat until you complete the season. Nothing fancy, nothing elaborate, just straight-ahead recreational coed-6s volleyball. Hence the name 'No Frills' was born.

What format do you play?

For the most part we use standard FIVB rules with a few modifications which you can find in our rules listed under the ‘Rules’ menu. A set of updated rules can also be downloaded in the ‘Downloads’ section.

Teams sign up to play in the division of their choice (for a description of each level of play, see the document – ‘Levels of Play’ in the ‘Downloads’ section). Divisions are set up so that you play your games on the same night every week.

What’s it like to play in your league and what are typical game times?

When you are scheduled you come to play. There’s no waiting around. You come to the gym; you will either set up or tear down the net depending if you are playing the early game (at 6:40 p.m.) or late (after 8:15 p.m.) game; you play your match, tear down and put away the nets and poles then leave, locking the doors behind you if there are no games after you. That’s it!

Games last at least 90 minutes (in most divisions) and players must be out of the gyms by 10 p.m. but should finish playing by 9:45 p.m.

Where are games played?

Currently most of our games are played at various Vancouver School Board gymnasiums in the city of Vancouver. ALL games are scheduled within the Vancouver City Limits.

When does the season start?

The Fall season usually starts in the first week of October (i.e. the Fall season) - the Winter season in early January and the Spring season in the 3rd or 4th week of April. Look for exact dates under the 'Registration' menu.

How long is the season?

The 'regular season', which includes both the Fall & Winter seasons, extends from October to mid-April. Looking at the Fall & Winter season separately, the Fall season ends just before Christmas. The Winter season begins in early January. Teams are welcome to join for just one of the two seasons inside the "regular season" if they wish.

We offer a Spring League as well! It runs from mid-April to the second last week of June. It is treated as it's own entity and is not included as an extension of the "Regular Season" (i.e. Fall & Winter seasons). It is a little shorter compared to the other two seasons as well.

New teams will be welcome to join the league in December for the Winter season and again in March for the Spring season if they were unable to register in time for either of the two previous sessions.

The single-knockout playoffs start in very late November in the Fall and in very late March or early April for the Winter season.

The very last game of the Fall-Winter season playoffs go in mid-April. The last game in Spring ends in the 3rd week of June typically.