Now it’s official: Stephen Maar will be a Gas Sales Bluenergy player for the next two seasons. Equipped with a very heavy arm in attack, a lot of quality and effectiveness, both blocking and serving, the Canadian player will enrich the spikers department that will be available to Andrea Anastasi for the next Super League.
Born in 1994, Canadian, 201 centimeters tall, Stephen Maar approached volleyball during his school years, starting to play with the Bill Crothers SS team. After high school he joined the McMaster men’s volleyball team, participating in the CIS Championship from the 2012-2013 to the 2015-2016 seasons.
He subsequently played seven seasons in the Super League. In the top flight he played 229 matches of which 119 won: 2862 points scored by the spiker of which 2387 in attack, 215 aces, 260 blocks and he was named MVP 20 times.
In the 2016-2017 sporting year he signed his first professional contract, arriving in the Italian Super League with Kioene Padova where he played an excellent season. In 2017-2018 he wore the Verona shirt and in the following one he defended the colors of Milan. After a year as a protagonist in Russia with the Dynamo Moscow shirt, the Canadian spiker returned to Italy in the 2020-2021 season again in Milan where he won the Cev Challenge Cup. In the 2021-2022 season he was a protagonist in Cisterna with which reaches the final of the Challenge Cup Play-Offs, lost against Piacenza. The last two seasons he was an absolute protagonist in Monza with which, in his last sporting year, he played in the Scudetto final, the Italian Cup final and the Challenge Cup final.
From 2012 to 2015 he was part of the Under 21 national team of Canada with which he won a silver medal at the 2012 North American Championship. Since 2015 he has been one of the pillars of the senior representative team, with which he has won individual awards (best spiker of the 2015 Pan American Cup, the 2017 and 2019 North American Championships and best spiker as well as scorer of the 2020 Tokyo North American Qualifiers) and won four bronze medals: two at the 2017 and 2019 North American Championships, one at the 2016 Pan American Cup and one at the World League 2017.
Stephen Maar: “I am too happy to come and play in a club like Piacenza which has made and is making great investments, I will do everything to help the club achieve its objectives. In the last season in Monza we did well and we came very close to winning something but we didn’t succeed, I am a person who wants to win and continue to grow, I arrive in Piacenza with a great desire to do well and with a lot of enthusiasm. We have all it takes to play a great season, there are strong players in the team and the coach is very good and prepared, we will not play in Europe but there will be a Super Cup, Italian Cup and Scudetto, we will fight for these three important goals, they are very confident. I greet the club, the fans: I’ll see you in Piacenza as soon as my commitments with the national team are over, I can’t wait.”
Elisabetta Curti (President of Gas Sales Bluenergy Volley Piacenza): “Maar is a versatile player, a great motivator, a true leader capable of dragging his teammates along and enthusing the public. A player who will help us a lot and who we have always liked, we have been following him for some time and now we have managed to bring him to Piacenza. His is a profile that we believe in and that we consider to be in perfect harmony with our growth path. Strong in attack, quality and effectiveness in blocking and serving, excellent in reception, I am really happy that he can wear our shirt.”
THE BOARD
Stephen Maar
Born in Scarborough (Canada)
December 6, 1994
Spiker role
Canadian sports nationality
Height 201 cm
CAREER
2012-2016 McMaster University UNI (CAN)
2016-2017 Kioene Padova SuperLega
2017-2018 Calzedonia Verona SuperLega
2018-2019 Revivre Axopower Milano SuperLega
2019-2020 Dynamo Moscow (Russia)
2020-2021 Allianz Milano SuperLega
2021-2022 Top Volley Cisterna SuperLega
2022-2023 Vero Volley Monza
2023-2024 Mint Vero Volley Monza
TITLES WITH CLUBS
2021 Challenge Cup
INDIVIDUAL AWARDS
2015 Best Spiker Pan American Cup
2017 Best Spiker North American Championship
2019 Best Spiker North American Championship
2020 Best Spiker North American Qualifiers for the XXXII Olympic Games in Tokyo
2020 Top Scorer North American Qualifiers for the XXXII Tokyo Olympics
MEDALS WITH THE NATIONAL TEAM
2012 silver Norceca U21
2016 bronze Pan American Cup
2017 World League Bronze
2017 bronze Norceca
2019 bronze Norceca
