The late Pitt Meadows senior boys basketball coach Rich Goulet. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Wilson Wong photography 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Tsumura: On what Rich Goulet’s after-hours home at Pitt Meadows was really like, and why its gym should forever bear his name!

You know what the most disappointing aspect of the movement currently afoot to have the gymnasium at Pitt Meadows Secondary School named in honour of its late, great basketball coach Rich Goulet?That the request wasn’t met with an automatic ‘Yes.’Of course I understand that the answer is ‘No’ and that tensions have built over the […]

The late Rich Goulet, valedictorian of the first graduating class at Burnaby's St. Thomas More Collegiate and later a two-time provincial championship-winning coach at the school, will see his name forever linked with the Knights' tradition-laden tournament, heretofore known as the Rich Goulet Memorial Chancellor. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Welcome to the Rich Goulet Memorial Chancellor! St. Thomas More to honour its late, great pioneering coach with lifelong tournament dedication!

BURNABY — In its early days, St. Thomas More Collegiate’s Chancellor Invitational enjoyed the distinct blessing of being run by a basketball visionary.From his very start as boys varsity head coach in 1970, Rich Goulet knew just what the Burnaby school’s annual tournament needed to represent to both student-athletes and coaches, and he worked tirelessly […]

Former Semiahmoo star Adam Paige has risen above the pack with the Alberta Golden Bears. This summer, the Surrey native will play professionally for the Fraser Valley Bandits. (Photo property University of Alberta athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball University Men's Basketball

Adam Paige: He’s Alberta’s rising hoops leader, and now Fraser Valley Bandits pro stint will make ex-Semiahmoo Totems star even better!

In one manner of speaking, you can say that Adam Paige can’t wait to write the next chapter of his basketball story.Yet in another, it’s not a stretch to say that by getting a chance to play professionally in the midst of his university career with the Alberta Golden Bears, that the 6-foot-8 Semiahmoo Totems […]

Burnaby South forward Eric Li (left) was one of several Rebels seniors denied a Grade 12 season due to the pandemic. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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A season without high school sports: Says Burnaby South AD Robbie Puni: “…when you don’t have it, you gain the valuable element of what you are missing out on”

BURNABY — Finding a way to most accurately describe the loss of the entire 2020-21 high school sports season in B.C. is at once an impossible challenge.Instead, Robbie Puni offered his observations.“We’re seeing a lot of kids without a team walking through the hallways, and some are carrying a basketball or a volleyball,” the longtime […]

G.W. Graham's 6-foot-2 forward Julia Tuchscherer (left) will graduate a year ahead of schedule and join her dad Al and older sister Deanna with the Fraser Valley Cascades next season. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Wilson Wong photography 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Post-marked UFV: How GWG Grizzlies’ Grade 11 post Julia Tuchscherer will pivot into the paint with U Sports’ Cascades next season!

ABBOTSFORD — For about as long as Julia Tuchscherer can remember, she’s had a knack for making all of the numbers add up.She’s even done it in these challenging times, heading down the home stretch of her Grade 11 year at Chilliwack’s G.W. Graham Secondary with a 4.0 grade point average within a core of […]

Longtime former Pitt Meadows senior boys basketball coach Rich Goulet passed away Sunday at the age of 74. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Wilson Wong photography 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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RIP, Coach: For Pitt Meadows & STM’s Rich Goulet (1946-2021), basketball was his student, his teacher and the air that he’d breathe

PITT MEADOWS — On Sunday, on what would be the final day of a life so completely devoted to his greatest passion, Rich Goulet made a simple request.“Scoresheets. He was asking for scoresheets from a Grade 9 basketball tournament,” said his nephew Dave Goulet who was bedside at the hospital, tending to the needs of […]

The RMS Queen Mary chugs into the harbour in New York City in June of 1945, still sporting the grey assemblage it was given during World War II. The story behind the colour of the British passenger liner is directly tied to one of the most unique nicknames in all of B.C. high school sports. (Public domain photo courtesy National Archives Catalog)
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A Sunday Read: Why do nicknames matter? The origin story of Vancouver’s Lord Byng Grey Ghosts!

VANCOUVER — The best high school nicknames have always carried an understated power.In just a word or two, they offer not only an instant connection across the generations, but a way of paying homage to unique histories and traditions that each can so proudly call its own.In fact at their very best, they are so […]

The Sardis Falcons mascot welcomes Varsity Letters' readers to our list of B.C. high school sports nicknames. (Photo property of Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Nicknames, nicknames: We’ve got the nicknames (of almost) every high school in B.C. right here!

Somewhere in my head is reserved a sacred space for not just my favourite high school teams of all time, but the ones with the best nicknames.In what started out as an early-pandemic project last March before going into a very extended hibernation, has today, a year later, emerged as something of a finished product.With […]

Imagine a B.C. high school basketball tournament where every team is called the Cougars! Our fantasy nickname invitational list makes it happen, and one of the invitees would be the Gold River Cougars. (Photo property of Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Invitation by nickname alone! Imagine a BC high school tourney just for Eagles, or Cougars, or Bears? Check out our list of the craziest invitational fields ever!

Eagles rule the roost when it comes to the single most popular nickname in all of B.C. high school sports.From Kitimat’s Mt. Elizabeth Eagles in the Northwest, to Surrey’s Johnston Heights Eagles in the south, a total of 15 of the 314 B.C. high schools we list nicknames for today, have the majestic winged-wonder installed […]

The mighty eagle in flight. (Public domain photo)
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COMING SUNDAY: The history and the hilarity of B.C. high school sports nicknames, plus, our list of every school’s moniker reveals the most popular!

Hope you will join us Sunday when Varsity Letters unveils a three-part project, all centred around B.C. high school sports nicknames.We will not only provide our list of nicknames for every school in the province with at least one senior varsity team, we’ll explore one longtime school’s particularly unique nickname, explaining in the process how […]