It was all a blur for Raya Surinx.

In the moments following the University of Manitoba Bisons’ victory in the national women’s volleyball championship final, and before the team was awarded the banner to commemorate their title, Surinx was honoured as the tournament’s most valuable player.

A collective chant of “MVP! MVP! MVP!” rained down on the 20-year-old outside hitter from 3,300 supporters inside a jam-packed Investors Group Athletic Centre on the Fort Garry campus.

BROOK JONES/FREE PRESS U of M Bisons left side Raya Surinx (centre) spikes the ball in the U Sports national championship game in March.

It was a peak moment for any university athlete.

“I remember, but I wish I remembered it more,” Surinx said.

“I kind of just remember because people keep telling me about it. My brother took a video, though. I have yet to see it, but he took a video. So one day I’ll see.”

Surinx has been at the centre of a tremendous amount of recognition personally and for the Bisons in the last month.

She starred in a promo with the Chicken Farmers of Manitoba before the national tournament — Surinx is a chicken fingers connoisseur, calling them her “main food group.”

On the eve of the national championship quarterfinals, she was named the U Sports women’s volleyball player of the year for the second straight season, becoming the eighth person to accomplish such a feat. Last week, the team took a trip to City Hall, where they were presented with an Outstanding Achievement Award.

Then comes Thursday evening, the cherry on top of an outstanding season, as Surinx will be awarded Sport Manitoba’s Athlete of the Year at the Manitoba Night of Champions ceremony.

Surinx was a logical winner after a dominant display on the court inside and outside the province. She trained with Volleyball Canada’s NextGen team and donned the Maple Leaf at the U23 Pan Am Cup in Mexico last summer.

She carried that momentum into the university season, when she led the nation in kills (310) and kills per set (4.84) for the second straight season before collecting a slew of awards, including the Canada West and U Sports Player of the Year, Bisons MVP and U of M’s Female Athlete of the Year.

“It’s a good way to finish,” she said. “I never even considered that, I didn’t know that it would be applicable to me. But I got the email, I kind of reread it, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t ever think about this. This is so cool.’ It’s just really exciting.”

BROOK JONES / FREE PRESS Raya Surinx holds the Mary Lyons Award for U Sports outstanding women’s volleyball player of the year at the All Canadian Awards Ceremony on March.

Surinx will be honoured alongside five other award winners: Susan Adey of Stonewall, named Official of the Year; Carla Wolfenden and Clayton Swanton of Dauphin, jointly named Volunteer of the Year; Shari Hebert of Winnipeg, named Coach of the Year; and Team Jordon McDonald, the curling squad out of Assiniboine, named the Team of the Year.

Adey, an equestrian steward of 40 years in dressage and hunter jumper events, received recognition after a busy 2024 in which she officiated across North America while continuing to serve on the Equestrian Canada and Manitoba Horse Council committees. The Stonewall resident is the only senior Dressage Steward in the province, and helped shape Equestrian Canada’s evaluation and performance guidelines.

Wolfenden and Swanton were named co-Volunteer of the Year for their work in the 2024 Manitoba Summer Games in Dauphin. The Games’ co-chairs led a team of over 750 volunteers, who helped organize a successful event for 1,600 participants across 12 sports.

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Hebert’s impact came as the head coach of the Rhythmic Royals Gymnastics Club, where she guided the program to top international finishes at meets in Denmark and Belgium. The Winnipegger has been at the forefront of advancing the sport locally through workshops and the Sport Manitoba Coaching Female Mentorship Program.

Meanwhile, it was a monumental year of growth for Team McDonald. Skip Jordon McDonald, third Dallas Burgess, second Elias Huminicki and lead Cam Olafson went from the junior ranks, where they won the U20 Provincial Championship and Canadian Junior Cup, to emerging as one of the top men’s teams in the country.

The Assiniboine-based team’s goals were to qualify for the Canadian Olympic pre-trials, earn a top-32 ranking in the world in order to qualify for Grand Slam of Curling Tier 2 events and have a good showing at the Manitoba men’s championship.

“Those were our main goals, for sure, and we absolutely demolished them,” said McDonald.

The Manitobans won the Canadian U25 NextGen Classic and Manitoba Curling Tour Curling Cup, and recorded seven top-three finishes to ascend to No. 7 in the country and No. 19 in the world this winter.

JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS From left: skip Jordon McDonald, third Dallas Burgess, second Elias Huminicki, lead Cam Olafson, coach William Lyburn.

Team McDonald made their GSOC debut at the WFG Masters in January and later reached the playoffs in the Manitoba men’s curling championship. They also narrowly missed out on direct qualification for the Olympic trials, but will play in the pre-trials in Wolfville, N.S., in October.

“It was really cool trying to chase that this year,” McDonald said of the Olympic trials berth. “We’re hoping to take that experience and learn from it moving forward, because chasing points is a really important part of this game, especially when you’re an up-and-coming team and trying to move up the ranks.”

The team of 20-somethings even shocked themselves this season. They’ve set the bar high heading into the fall.

“I think the big takeaway for me is… going into men’s, it just kind of puts perspective on it. Juniors was great and it’s a lot of fun, but playing men’s at a high level juniors is really nothing compared to that,” McDonald said.

“When we were playing men’s this year, it just feels like every event we go into, there’s a lot at stake with points and cash and everything. And as a player, that is super fun and that brings out the best in us as our team and me as a player… so I think that that change has been a little bit helpful, and that in that success that we’ve had this year, it’s just made it a lot of fun for us.”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca

Joshua Frey-Sam Reporter

Josh Frey-Sam reports on sports and business at the Free Press. Josh got his start at the paper in 2022, just weeks after graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College. He reports primarily on amateur teams and athletes in sports. Read more about Josh.

Every piece of reporting Josh produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.