There is no single place where Snow Volleyball started. There are images from different places from around the world where players played volleyball on snow in different time epochs.
If you did an internet search for “Polar Bear Volleyball, 1922” you can a pictures from the US military playing on snow. Another picture from 1982 from St. Thomas University in Minnesota, USA shows college players in the snow playing during their spring break week.
Raising the popularity in Europe and bring it finally to the International Federation
Chaka2 (a Sports Marketing agency from Austria), started in 2008 with the first event in Wagrain, Austria (see more about the history from Chaka2.)We have to thank Martin Kaswurm and his team for starting competitions and providing entertainment on the mountain. He and his team did all the hard work with the European Confederation and the International Federation that finally created official competitions.
THANK YOU MARTIN
Official starting of international competition
In 2016, the first homologated event of Snow Volleyball was held under the umbrella of the European Volleyball Confederation (CEV) and we put have all the events listed on our events page.
The first official event outside of Europe was in February 2017 held at the Dizin mountain resort 71km north of Tehran, Iran.
During the 2018 winter Olympics in South Korea, the CEV and the FIVB showcased Snow Volleyball in PyeongChang with a Snow Volleyball Night at the Austrian House with an exhibition match featuring some of the world’s greatest stars from Volleyball and Beach Volleyball, such as Emanuel, Giba, Kim Yeon-Koung, Nikolas Berger, Stefanie Schwaiger, Vladimir Grbic and Xue Chen. The event raised huge interest and attract the attendance of over 40 TV stations and IOC member Price Albert of Monaco himself.
In 2019 the first World Tour events were held under the umbrella of FIVB (Fédération Internationale de Volleyball) with 3 stops in Austria, Italy and Argentina.
Also in 2019, it was the first year the sport had made changes in the rules. The biggest change was to have a team of 3 with one substitution/replacement player. The 2019 season was the first season where 3 against 3 on the court was played, this changed the game drastically. This change created a new area of tactics into the game. Strategies of “Double versus single blocking”, “2 receivers or 3 receivers” etc. There are different opinions about these changes but the current situation should help further promote the sport.
In 2020 the FIVB was organized a Snow Volleyball Festival during the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics at the Place de l’Europe in Lausanne, Switzerland to showcase the sport. Legends from the FIVB and IOC members came to the mountain to showcase for the 2nd time our sport to the world and held clinics for local youth volleyball clubs.
Rule changes
Up to 2018 the sport mainly was ported from Beach Volleyball with the same rules and regulations. After the first 3 seasons it was finally ready to move the sport to another level. The adoption of the rule changes created a more dynamic and exciting sport for the crowd and was successful in its venture during the 2019 World Tour.