The Northern Chill Volleyball Club sent more athletes to OVA (Ontario Volleyball Association) Beach Volleyball Provincials this summer than in any other year – 23 players in all; 15 boys / 8 girls – but that was only a very small part of the local highlights in that sport since May.

A few weekends ago, the Chill enjoyed their most productive weekend at Ashbridges Bay in Toronto when twins Braydan and Keelan Mathur captured bronze in the Boys 13U Championship Division, with Olivier Tremblay and Ottawa-based partner Tristan King doing likewise in Boys 17U Division I Tier I play, duplicating the feat at nationals one week later.

While Braydan acknowledged that he and Keelan are not in complete lockstep in every single aspect of personality or physical skill – Keelan is more prone to perhaps bringing a little more intensity to the beach, with Braydan able to deal with a team faux-pas just a little bit better – the similarities are many.

They are also clearly advantageous to the St Benedict Catholic Secondary School grade eight duo.

“When people play against us, they don’t know who to serve at because we are both the exact same level,” explained Braydan. “And sometimes we trick people because they can’t really tell us apart.”

And then, of course, there is that element of team chemistry that is difficult for most partners to duplicate. “We’ve played with other kids from our club too and it’s kind of hard when you don’t know each other as well,” added Braydan. “We’ve known each other our whole life so we know what we’re going to do, kind of.”

“You kind of share the same brain, sort of.”

The siblings would first crack the Algonquin Public School grade six team one year early, teaming up for beach play in 2023 and then making the jump to the NCVC indoor team in 2024-2025.

“We’ve been practicing for a while now,” said Braydan.

And where as many as half of more of the six players on the court may not touch the ball on a particular serve receive in the winter game, beach athletes have no option but to be right in the middle of things on pretty much a continuous basis.

“Beach is a lot different, with only two people,” said Braydan. “There’s a lot of ways to talk on the court in beach. On serve receive, if he (your partner) is not going to get the ball, the other team could easily get a point.”

“You need to talk a lot in beach.”

Perhaps even more when the familiarity has not been built over the course of several years.

For as much as Olivier Tremblay and Tristan King were teammates on a Team Ontario squad previously, their first foray as a beach tandem occurred literally just weeks prior to the 2025 all-Ontario tournament.

“We did a tournament together and did really well,” said Tremblay. “I did not have a set teammate and neither did he.”

And while there is no denying the individual talent of both young men who are sure to move on and play at the next level, there are certainly recorded cases of elite talent combining to produce results that are less than stellar.

“Everyone is different; everyone’s set is different,” said Tremblay. “We tried to establish chemistry. I didn’t see anything wrong with what he was doing and he didn’t see anything wrong with what I was doing.”

“Things were just really smooth with him.”

Perhaps some of that was foreseeable.

“I am a blocker and he’s a defender, so that’s a big thing,” said Tremblay. “I am a left side and play on the left side of the court and he’s a leftie (left-handed hitter), so he plays on the right side. This way, there’s no conflict.”

Yet even more important than possessing a somewhat complementary skill-set comes the beach volleyball reality that above all else, very well-rounded volleyball players tend to excel in the sand.

“You are going to touch the ball every rally – unless the ball goes up on one (hit),” stated Tremblay. “If the ball gets served to him, he will pass to me and I have to set. If the ball gets served at me, he has to set. You have to be able to do everything or else you are not going to have success.”

“If you can’t set a ball, they’re just going to serve the same guy, every time.”

The back to back bronze medal performances for Tremblay and King made for a great cap to an incredible summer for the grade 12 student at Ecole secondaire Macdonald-Cartier - with even that still potentially in flux.

Part of the Ontario 17U indoor team that travelled to Slovenia at the end of July, Tremblay has been approached as the alternate for the national 19U team. Should an injury or such occur in the next few weeks, he would find himself summoned to Gatineau to train with the coast to coast crew for his first semester of his final secondary school year.

That, of course, would only add to what is already an impressive collection of volleyball opportunities that the young man who first starred in speedskating locally has come to know.

“The quality of play (in Slovenia) was a lot higher than what I was used to,” he said. “I feel that I see the game a bit differently now. I’m glad that I got that opportunity.”

Tremblay is expected to announce his post-secondary institution of choice in the coming weeks, having visited at least a small handful of the very best U Sports programs in the country.

Meanwhile, as play at provincials wrapped up this past weekend, the Sudbury pair of Harlym Triff and Josslyne Ouellette joined the above trio in terms of Chill athletes who returned north with some hardware at Ashbridges Bay, walking off with bronze in 16U Division 2 Tier I competition early in August.

On the indoor scene, Mya Balfe won a silver medal, part of a Team Ontario squad that finished second in Canada Cup play hosted at Canada Games Park in Thorold.