Dates, Location & Fees

The Northern Lights Qualifier will take place over three different weekends in 2026.

January 29 – 31, 2027 (Friday – Sunday)

March 5 – 7, 2027 (Friday – Sunday)

March 12 – 14, 2027 (Friday – Sunday).

Currently, we plan to offer 28 qualifying divisions and 2 non-qualifying divisions.  Please refer to the home page to see which weekend the division you are interested in is scheduled.

Competition will take place at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The entry fee will be $925 per team for all teams in all qualifying divisions.  The non-qualifying divisions will have a $650 entry fee.

We will also be offering the January Thaw for girls 14’s, 15’s, 16’s and boys 16’s, 18’s side-by-side with the Northern Lights Qualifier (January event).  The entry fee for the January Thaw is $590.  More information can be found here.  We also plan to host two boys divisions in the January Thaw.

The Northern Lights Qualifier and the January Thaw are sanctioned by USA Volleyball and an active USAV membership is required for all rostered players and staff.

Divisions

For most ages, we will offer the Open, USA, Liberty and American Divisions.  The Open Division is for those teams wishing to qualify for the Open Division at Nationals.  The USA/American Divisions are for those teams wishing to qualify for the USA , Liberty, or American Divisions at Nationals and for teams who do not wish to attend Nationals.

Open is the highest and most competitive division.  USA is the 2nd highest division.  Liberty is the 3rd highest division.  American is the 4th highest division.

New teams who have never competed before at the National Championships should select American Division.

The 11’s will only have one division called the 11 National Division.  If the registration for this division is below 8 teams, no bid will be given and all of the 11’s teams will be combined into the 12 American Division.  There is no 11 American Division.

The 12’s will have three divisions at all National Qualifiers provided they each have a minimum of 8 teams.  They are 12 National, 12 USA and 12 American.  If there are less than 8 teams in any division, they may be combined.

How to Enter

Tournament registration will open on September 14, 2026 at 9:00 AM CT / 10:00 AM ET.

Immediate payment will be required when registering.

To enter the Northern Lights Qualifier:

  1.  Read the website to make sure you have all necessary information about the tournament.  Rosters are not required to enter the tournament, but are required before team check in.
  2.  Go to our registration website, VBSchedule.com.
  3.  Create a login & password if you are a first time user. (The “Login” link may be at the top of the screen)
    • Go to VBSchedule.com
    • Click “Login” in the top right corner
    • Click “Sign up for an account” and follow the instructions.
  4. Create your teams and add staff/players.  If you have an account already, go to step 5.
  5.  Register for the event.  Detailed instructions can be found here.
  6.  Immediate payment is required when you register.
  7.  Register for your hotel rooms in an approved tournament hotel through our housing company (The THS Company).  Note:  before you will be permitted to reserve hotel rooms, you must be registered for the tournament and we must have received the full entry fee.  Hotel reservations will open on September 28 at 10:00 AM CT.

The registration deadline for receipt of the online registration, the entry fee and meeting the Stay and Play requirement is:

  • December 11, 2026 3:00 pm Central Time for the January event
  • Date February 1, 2027 3:00 pm Central Time for the March event
  • Entries will close prior to these dates if divisions fill early

All entries received after these dates/times will be considered on a space available basis.  If you would like to enter the Northern Lights Qualifier past the deadline, please send an e-mail to the Northern Lights office:  [email protected] to inquire.

Northern Lights is using the Stay and Play Policy.

Methods of Payment

The Northern Lights Qualifier only accepts credit cards for payment.  Your credit card payment must be made through the registration system and cannot be taken over the phone.

We no longer accept checks as payment due to issues we’ve had in the past.

Cancellation / Refund Policy

Please read our non-negotiable Cancellation / Refund Policy carefully.

  • Prior to November 30, 2026 (11:59 pm central time):  Any team which has registered and made payment to the tournament will be entitled to a full refund minus a $100 per team cancellation fee. See cancellation process below.
  • After December 1, 2026 (12:01 am central time), but prior to December 14, 2026 (11:59pm central time):  Any team which has registered and made payment to the tournament will be entitled to a 50% refund. See cancellation process below.
  • After December 15, 2026 (12:01 am central time), if any team that is not on a wait list decides to drop out for any reason, the team will forfeit the entire entry fee regardless of whether the drop happens before or after the official entry deadline date and regardless of your hotel status with THS.  This includes all drops that may pertain to acts or threats of war, acts or threats of terrorism, a health risk alert, or weather conditions. See cancellation process below.
  • A team which enters the tournament then cancels from the tournament and is found to have entered another event which runs over any of the same dates, will receive no refund.

Cancellation Process: 

  • Login into your club VBSchedule account
    • Click on “My Clubs” in the menu on the left
    • Click on your club name
    • Click on “Registrations” in the menu on the top
    • Find the team you want to cancel from the event
    • Click on the team name
    • Click on “Request Cancellation” at the bottom of the pop-up window
    • Provide a reason for the cancellation and select the red box “Request Cancellation”

Northern Lights will respond within 48 hours to your cancellation request.

All requests for refund may take up to 45 days to be processed.

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Denied Entry/Wait Lists

If a team is denied entry into the Northern Lights Qualifier, the team may:

  • Elect to cancel its application and receive a full refund of its entry fee or
  • Elect to go onto a wait list.  To be put on a wait list, the entry requirements of registration, payment and hotel requirements must have been met.

A team on a wait list may drop out and obtain a full refund of its entry fee as long as we have not yet accepted the team into the tournament from the wait list.  To do this, a team on a wait list must have notified us in writing (in other words, an e-mail) of their desire to drop before they receive notification of being accepted from the wait list.

Stay and Play Compliance

A team that previously met the Stay and Play requirements and was accepted, but then fell out of compliance with the Stay and Play housing requirements and was  removed from the event will not be eligible for any refund even if they subsequently met the Stay and Play housing requirements but were not re-accepted due to the event or division being full.  In general, any attempt to bypass or use the Stay and Play housing requirements and/or wait list to obtain a refund will not be honored.

Tournament Cancellation

If the tournament is cancelled or interrupted due to weather, acts or threats of war, acts or threats of terrorism or a health risk alert, event entry refunds will be made to individuals or teams on a prorated basis once all Northern Lights out-of-pocket expenditures for the cancelled or interrupted event have been settled from such a fee.

Entry fees are non-transferable to another team, even from the same club.

Some divisions may fill before the deadline.

Travel Plans

Travel Plans

We highly recommend that you do not make non-refundable, non-changeable travel plans to attend the Northern Lights Qualifier until your team has been accepted. Acceptance will occur once ALL requirements have been met, including housing.

The longer you can wait to make your travel plans, the better.

Northern Lights cannot be held responsible for any non-refundable costs incurred by anyone as a result of a date or location change or the cancellation of the event itself.

We also recommend that all clubs also advise their parents of this situation as well.

Foreign Teams

Only teams from the United States or a US Territory (Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, US Virgin Islands) are eligible to compete at the Northern Lights Qualifier.  Canadian teams are welcome to enter the non-qualifying divisions in March or the January Thaw divisions.

Age Waivers

National Qualifiers are not permitted to honor any age waivers.  Teams must compete in the division that corresponds with the oldest player on their team.  The exception to this is in the USAV ruling that allows high school juniors who were born prior to July 1 and are not yet 18 to participate in the 17’s age division.

Child on Bench Waiver

Find the USA Volleyball Child on Bench Waiver here.

Local Teams

Northern Lights defines a Local Team as having a club mailing address that is 50 or less miles away from the Minneapolis Convention Center.  Clubs with addresses that are located further than this are required to adhere to the Stay and Play policy.  You can view more information about our definition of Local Teams on the Stay and Play webpage.

Acceptance Criteria

In order to be accepted into the event, all teams which are not considered local teams must use tournament approved hotels booked through our housing agency.  Northern Lights has contracted with THS to manage reservations and approve all hotels being used for this event.

Team acceptance is first-come, first-served, starting 96 hours after hotel housing has opened.

Teams must have a completed entry to be accepted.  A completed entry is defined as:

  • Registered online.
  • Paid the entry fee.
  • Met the housing requirements as define by our Stay and Play policy.
    • Team is a local team
    • Team has a signed booking agreement with THS for the minimum required 15 hotel room nights.

Teams with a completed entry will be ranked by the time stamp of their original entry. Teams with an earlier time stamp will be accepted first until the division is full.

Once capacity is reached, remaining teams will be added to the wait list and the division closed.

Non-local teams that entered, paid for the event, and were in a pending status,  but did not complete the housing requirement within 96 hours after housing opened, will be moved to the bottom of the wait list.

As space becomes available, teams from the wait list will be moved into a pending status and at that time have the opportunity to complete the housing requirements in order to be accepted.

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Team Status

You can check your entry status by logging into your team’s account in our registration system and viewing your team’s dashboard.

The Qualifier Director has the discretion to allow teams who may have been denied access to the Open Division to move to the USA or American Division based on space available at the time of the move.  Teams in the USA Division or American Division may be offered the opportunity to move to the Open Division to round out the field or create a preferred pool/bracket (teams of 4).

Division Change Requests

If you wish to change to a different division we need you to submit a Division Change Request from VBSchedule.   This allows us to automatically log the request and keep track of them.

        How to submit a Division Change Request

  • Login into your club VBSchedule account
    • Click on “My Clubs” in the menu on the left
    • Click on your club name
    • Click on “Registrations” in the menu on the left
    • Chose the team for which you want to request a division change
    • In the box revealed, choose “Request a Division Change”
    • Select the division you wish to switch to and provide reason
    • Submit request

Granting your Request to Change Divisions

Division changes are only possible if space exists in a division, or if there is another team that wishes to make a switch in the opposite division.

Please do not call or email us to ask what your chances are of switching divisions.  We do not know how many, if any, teams will want to make a switch in the opposite direction. If a division switch is possible, we process them in the order received.

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Cancelling a Request to Change Divisions

To remove a team’s request to change divisions:

  • Login into your club VBSchedule account
    • Click on “My Clubs” in the menu on the left
    • Click on “Dashboard – Click Here”
    • Find the team for which you want to remove a division change request.
    • Click on the drop arrow on the right next to the current entry status
    • In the team box revealed, choose “Request Division Change”.
    • Unselect the Divisions you no longer want to be considered for.

Roster Requirements and Validation

The deadline for submitting a valid roster for the January event is Wednesday January 27, 5:00 pm CST.

The deadline for submitting a valid roster for the March event (week 1) is Wednesday March 3, 5:00 pm CST.

The deadline for submitting a valid roster for the March event (week 2) is Wednesday March 10, 5:00 pm CST.

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Full team rosters are required to participate in the Mizuno Northern Lights Qualifier.  You will be required to enter and validate your roster prior to being able to Check-In to the event.

Adults listed as coaches on rosters must have successfully passed the USAV Impact Clinic or the CAP Level 1 course AND be SafeSport Certified.  This will be verified by data sent to our system from the USAV registration system.  There are no Impact or SafeSport clinics offered at this qualifier.

Players who are 18 years old or who will turn 18 prior to August 31, 2026 are also required to be SafeSport Certified.

Your players and staff members, along with their certifications, can be imported directly from the USAV SportsEngine registration system.  To do this:

  • Log into your VBSchedule account and click on “My Clubs” in the menu on the left
  • Click on your club name
  • Click on “Members” in the menu on the left
  • Scroll to the bottom of page, you will see the options available:
    • ” + Add Member” – manually enter the information of a member
    • “Import” – import members from excel / file previously created
    • “Sync USAV” – automatically import and/or update all of the members associated with your club directly from the USAV/SportsEngine system into our system**
    • “Sync AAU” – automatically import from AAU/SportsEngine system
  • You are able to update or delete a member’s information at anytime by selecting their name from the members list
    • After clicking on a specific member’s name you will see their information, memberships, and the rosters they are a part of

**If this does not work, it is because Sports Engine is not sending our system valid information, or your Team Code in our system does not match Sports Engine.  To resolve this make sure your team code in our system matches what is in Sports Engine.   It is also possible that the members of your club are not associated/affiliated with your club in the USAV/MMS system.  To correct this problem you must go into your Sport Engine account, and send your members  “club assignment invite”. The member must then accept the invite in their personal profile to complete the association and then you will be able to import them into our system.

If you are having problems validating a member, we have consulted with VBSchedule and created a document that will help you clear up the problem.  To view that document, please click here.

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To create or update your roster, log into VBSchedule.com:

Default Rosters:

  • Log into your VBSchedule account and click on “My Clubs”
  • Click on your club name
  • Click on “Teams” in the menu on the left
  • Choose the team that you wish to work on
  • To add players, click on ” + Player”
    • Scroll to find or type to search for the player you wish to add
    • Select their name, add their uniform number and check the box if they are a score keeper
    • Choose the blue box ” + Add”
    • Repeat for all players on the roster and then select “Done”
  • Players will be listed under “Default Roster”
  • To add staff members, repeat the same process by starting with clicking on ” + Staff”
    • Choose their position, check the box if they are a score keeper then add

Event Rosters:

  • Log into your VBSchedule account and click on “My Clubs”
  • Click on your club name
  • Click on “Registrations” in the menu on the left
  • Choose the team + event that you wish to work on
  • Click on “Event Roster” in the pop-up box
  • You may choose to “Apply Default Roster” or manually add players and staff

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To clear up validation problems, delete problem members from your membership list (in our system) and also from the default roster and all event rosters.  Make sure all occurrences of them are gone, as sometimes people have duplicates in their membership list and that can cause a problem.   After deleting those members, use the import function from USAV to get the members again.   Our system will import all of the members it finds that are related to your club in SE, and hopefully those problem members will now show up again and be valid.

The bottom line is that our system merely acts on the information that SE sends it; Eligible or Not Eligible. If  the problem is not cured by deleting members and re-adding them using the USAV import function on our system, then somewhere in the SE system there is something that is not properly marked and it is sending our system the info that this person is not eligible.  You need to get SE to find the problem and resolve it.  Many times SE has multiple records for the same person, old ones, different types of memberships, bogus ones that a parent created, etc,  and this causes a problem.

We encourage you to update and verify your roster at minimum a few weeks before competition.  This will ensure that any issues you may run into with roster verification can be taken care of with time to spare before the event.

The biggest issues with roster verification usually involve last minute adds to rosters with adults or 18 year old players (or soon-to-be 18 year old players) who very recently finished their certifications (Impact Safe Sport, etc.) You may need to update your members by running the import routine again.  If you cannot verify your roster by resolving the issues that are displayed when you try to verify, it is recommended that you contact SportsEngine, your region, or the helpdesk of our registration system.  Do not contact Northern Lights as there is nothing we can do to make sure the various systems outside our control update in a timely manner.

Non-Rostered Personnel on Team Bench

A team which is found in violation of having a non-rostered person on the team bench, will have the penalty applied that is specified in the USAV Championship Manual.  That penalty involves a financial payment to be specified by the tournament.  The Northern Lights Qualifier will specify that amount to be $200.

Seeding & Team Strength Information

We are pleased to announce that our system has the ability to accumulate a huge seeding database that contains all of the results from competitions that used any of the 3 major online scheduling systems.  Those systems are VBSchedule, Advanced Event Systems (AES) and SportWrench.  If your team played in a competition that was scheduled on one of those systems, we already have the results in the seeding database.

If you wish to have results from competitions that did not use one of the above online scheduling systems considered for seeding, you may enter them in the  system.  We especially encourage any teams that have not played in any events using of of these three systems to enter results by January 12 (for the January Tournament) and February 23 (for the March tournament dates).  A lack of valid results means your team may be seeded near the bottom.

This tournament is seeded using a computer seeding program.  The seeding program takes into account your win/loss record, head-to-head results, age levels you play, and other factors.

The procedure to manually enter results which were not not played on one of the above 3 named online scheduling systems:

  1. Log into your club’s VBSchedule account
  2. Click on “My Clubs” in the menu on the left
  3. Click on your club name
  4. Click on “Teams” in the menu on the left
  5. Click on the team you wish to enter results for
  6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “Competition Results”
  7. Enter your results and select the blue box “+ Add Result” to submit

Note: Only results which are manually entered by you will be displayed at the bottom of the page. Results that we have our database from other systems will not be displayed, but are used in all seeding calculations.