West Vancouver Highlanders' Max Fraser was selected tournament MVP after leading his team to the Terry Fox Legal Beagle championship title Saturday in Port Coquitlam. (Photo by Blair Shier property of Blair.photo 2024. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

Legal Beagle 2024: Led by its wrestling-themed Four Horsemen, West Vancouver Highlanders pull back-to-back-to-back wins out of the fire, then rise to No. 2 in latest Quad-A rankings!

PORT COQUITLAM — They’re named after a legendary stable of professional wrestlers ever assembled, and in a manner of speaking it’s actually very fitting because any time they’ve found themselves on the figurative ropes, a tag-team mentality has just seemed to take over.In a nutshell, that’s the best way to sum up the the quartet […]

Over a coaching career touching parts of five decades, Paul Eberhardt of the West Van Highlanders is one of B.C.'s longest-tenured head coaches. (Photo by Blair Shier property of Blair.photo 2023. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

“Hey Coach Ebe, some season, huh?” From lessons learned as guest coach at Sacramento Kings camp, to magical year at West Van, Paul Eberhardt leads Highlanders into B.C. Sweet 16 clash against Rich Chambers & Terry Fox Ravens!

WEST VANCOUVER — He was bold enough as a high school senior back in the earliest days of the 1980s to step forward, take his own team and declare his major for life: Basketball coach.And this past fall, when the opportunity arose to attend the NBA training camp of the Sacramento Kings as a guest […]

Two of B.C. junior basketball's rough-and-tumble best came together Sunday in the provincial quarterfinals at the LEC as West Vancouver's plaid-adorned Zeyad Ahmed collides with Burnaby South's Llorikk Gutierrez. (Photo by Blair Shier property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2022. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

B.C. Jr. Boys Elite 8: Burnaby South shows plenty of shine as roster’s depth steps up to earn win over West Van and berth in Monday’s Final Four!

LANGLEY — What’s a sure-fire way to get Burnaby South junior boys basketball coach Rupi Dahia to shrug his shoulder?Simple: Ask him who the stars of his team are.“That’s the key thing about this team… we don’t really have that ‘best’ player,” Dahia confessed Sunday after his No. 3-seeded Rebels made every key shot they […]

Grade 10 point guard Ashley Chio has played beyond her years in helping West Vancouver punch its ticket to March Madness. (Photo by Blair Shier property of Blair.photo 2022. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

The Power of Plaid: In lending a hand to All My Relations indigenous women’s team, Big Dance-bound West Van Highlanders tap a collective vein to their own gritty hearts!

WEST VANCOUVER — A return to the Big Dance for the first time in a quarter century is turning out to be the ultimate win-win for the senior girls basketball team from West Vancouver Secondary School.After all, what head coach doesn’t want their team dialled in with 100 per cent focus, ready to sacrifice for […]

Argyle Pipers' Nick Golasovsky charges up field under wet conditions Saturday against the host West Vancouver Highlanders. (Photo by Blair Shier property of Blair.photo 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Football

B.C. High School Football Report 10.23.21 edition: Our Saturday chronicles examine wins by Argyle, Holy Cross and Sardis!

LANGLEY — Welcome to Varsity Letters’ Saturday night B.C. High School Football Report.It’s an abbreviated schedule with three games.Thanks to photographer Blair Shier for venturing out into the elements to provide out readers with great realism from the action.AA COASTALARGYLE 15 at WEST VANCOUVER 7WEST VANCOUVER — Wise and sensible scheming kept the ball on […]

Carson Graham senior quarterback Logan Mellish engineered the winning drive on Friday as Carson Graham edged West Vancouver. (Photo by Blair Shier property of Blair.photo 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Football

FINAL: Varsity Letters’ 10.08.21 B.C. High School Football Report, Friday Night Lights LATE-NITE edition!

LANGLEY — Welcome to another addition of the 2021 Varsity Letters B.C. High School Football Report for the Thanksgiving Day long weekend.Keep checking back on this post throughout the evening as we continue to update games from around the province and remember that the records you see for all of the teams is their conference […]

Chris Kennedy, a 1991 McNair Secondary grad, has coached basketball in B.C. since the 1987-88 season. The Superintendent of Schools for West Vancouver most recently guided Richmond's R.A. McMath Wildcats senior girls team. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball High School Girls Basketball

VL Podcast 01.13.21: Author, author! Chris Kennedy takes his ‘Culture of Yes’ into its second decade with a message more relevant than ever

LANGLEY — Happy New Year. Our first podcast of 2021 features Chris Kennedy, Superintendent of Schools for West Vancouver, and a lifelong B.C. high school basketball coach. Kennedy’s popular blog Culture of Yes is now in its 11th year, and today the Richmond native stops by to engage our provincial audience with everything that the […]

Thirty years ago this month, UBC's J.D. Jackson (centre) played on the same floor at B.C. Place Stadium as UNLV superstars Stacey Augmon (left) and Larry Johnson. (Photo graphic by Gabriel Lynn property of Varsity Letters 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball University Men's Basketball

A Sunday Read: Why Dec. 1, 1990 – the day the UNLV Rebels came to town – was the day Vancouver came of age as a basketball city!

VANCOUVER — I can still remember the day that the late, great Jim Taylor, the newspaper sports columnist of my youth and later a co-worker at The Province newspaper, invited me over to his Vancouver home so that I might conduct an interview for a feature story I wanted to write on him for my […]

The late West Vancouver Highlanders' senior girls volleyball head coach Mike MacNeil was an inspiration to so many, including current Simon Fraser Clan volleyball star Betsie de Beer (second from right). (Photo by Jo-Anne McKee property of West Vancouver Secondary athletics 2019. All rights reserved)
Feature High School Girls Volleyball University Women's Volleyball

SFU’s Betsie de Beer: Clan volleyball star’s homage to her late high school coach Mike MacNeil reminds us all of the power of mentorship

BURNABY — Betsie de Beer doesn’t try to hide the fact that she is playing her final season of collegiate volleyball with a heavy heart.At the same time, however, Simon Fraser’s talented 6-foot-1 outside hitter and health sciences major can’t exactly offer a scientific explanation as to why of late, that heart of hers has […]

Despite playing just one season of football, West Vancouver's Simon Li has been signed by the Canada West power Calgary Dinos. (Photo property of West Vancouver Secondary athletics 2019. All rights reserved)
Feature High School Football High School Rugby University Football

West Vancouver’s Simon Li: Just 15 months after tackling football and rugby, the Highlanders’ raw rookie answers the call of the Calgary Dinos

WEST VANCOUVER — Out of nowhere, he established his high school’s new gold standard for raw rookies. Now, West Vancouver Highlanders’ graduating senior  Simon Li is headed off to a university career as a diamond in the rough.