Yale's Ava Heppner (right) pictured here driving on Burnaby Central's Sophia Morton during Dec. 14 action at the 2023 TBI, led her Lions to the G.W. Graham Top 10 title on Saturday in Chilliwack and was later named tourney MVP. (Photo by Ryan Molag property of Langley Events Centre 2023. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Pride of the Lions! MVP Ava Heppner helps lead Yale of Abbotsford to first place at G.W. Graham Top 10 tourney and to No. 3 in latest B.C. Quad-A rankings!

CHILLIWACK — There has been no shortage of inspiring play this season from the senior girls basketball team at Abbotsford’s Yale Secondary.Yet more times than not for the hard-working Lions, there has been a distinct lack of championship finishes as they have traversed the fields of the province’s very best invitational tournaments in 2023-24.All of […]

With its logo featuring both the brain and a basketball, Bigger Than Basketball event founder Bradley Braich is turning the gathering point of the gymnasium into a place where it's just as easy to talk about mental health as it is to work on your jumper. (Photo by Ryan Molag property of Langley Events Centre 2023 All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball High School Girls Basketball

A Sunday Read: Five years his after mental health struggles nearly claimed him, ex-Yale hoops star Bradley Braich is a UBC neuroscience major whose life defines ‘Bigger Than Basketball’

Today, I wanted to share with you a little about the history of the most important story we have been able to tell here at Varsity Letters, and how that story’s subject has grown in ways which truly surpass the margins of the written page.Just weeks shy of five years ago, a courageous 17-year-old basketball […]

Yale's Rebecca Demeter (right) steps in to guard Elly Drazic of the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs in final round play Saturday at the 2023 Centennial Top 10 Shoot-Out in Coquitlam. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2023. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Centennial Top 10 Shoot-Out 2023 Saturday finale! After two-year hiatus, we’ve got Day 4 placing-game-reports from the January girls hoops classic right here!

COQUITLAM — Welcome to the fourth and final day of the Centennial Top 10 Shoot-Out here at Centennial Secondary School.Check back at Varsity Letters through the day today as we provide game reports from several of the four-day event’s placing games.As well, we’ll have a separate posting on the championship final between Quad A’s two […]

Jayden White of the Yale Lions has overcome the odds to rebound from injury and find a place next season at the University of Alberta. In Edmonton, she will play hoops, major in education and continue her studies in American Sign Language. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

Jayden White: Special signs along the way speak the truth of compassion, tenacity Yale Lions forward carries to Alberta Pandas!

ABBOTSFORD — Ask Jayden White what it means for her to have walked the walk through a star-crossed high school basketball career, and she’ll show you this photo of the inside of a Gatorade bottle cap containing the bone chips surgeons extricated from her knee back in 10th grade.“The biggest one is the size of […]

R.A. McMath's Travis Hamberger (left), here being defended by Centennial's Leif Skelding at the 2018 B.C. Junior Varsity championship tournament, will lead his Wildcats into the 2020 TBI this coming December. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

TBI Boys 2020: With a plethora of positivity and plenty of warm hoops karma, B.C.’s best accept invites for an early-season date at the LEC!

NORTH DELTA — Jesse Davis. Everett Swaim. Justin Sunga. Bobby Mabeny. KC Ibekwe. Ben Manns. Caleb Lyons. Rav Randhawa. Clay Kurtz. Karn Shergill. Rourke MacDonald. Travis Hamberger. Gyan Sandhu. Rhys Maestre. Milan John. Daniel Marcelo. Ekman Sohal. Arars Jahangiri. Jaydan Bains. Kyle Kong.

Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers' rising senior guard Alyza Aikins will lead her team into the 2020 Tsumura Basketball Invitational this December at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Twenty teams for TBI 2020! Our roster for the annual senior girls Tsumura Basketball Invitational features B.C.’s best of the best!

LANGLEY — Our collective fingers are crossed with the hope that a safe fall and winter season is on the horizon for high school sports in the province of B.C.And in the spirit of that positivity, we hope that one of the final highlights of a challenging 2020 calendar year will be the latest edition of […]

The Terry Fox Ravens celebrate a win over Yale and a berth in Saturday's B.C. senior girls AAAA finals against Semiahmoo. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Merton’s back-to-back coast-to-coast lay-ups spur Terry Fox’s late 10-0 run, Ravens top Yale in Final Four to draw Totems in Quad-A final!

LANGLEY — It was a basketball game whose flow, while filled with pace, seemed to be playing out as if being held on a short leash.No big swings either way, buckets being answered with buckets, stops being answered by stops. You know the drill.But then, midway through the fourth quarter, like something that just fell […]

Surprise Munie was as prolific as ever on the offensive end, but the Brit star had a shout out for the Bruins' defence in its Elite 8 TBI win over the Yale Lions. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

TBI 2019 Elite 8: Britannia’s Double-A Bruins show a depth of versatility, adaptability in taming Yale’s Quad-A Lions

LANGLEY — They aren’t as recognized as their fellow senior Bruins Surprise Munie and Shemaiah Abatayo, yet you could almost say that Britannia’s emerging frontcourt duo of Tiana Sacco and Lagi Vaa hold a big key to the ultimate versatility and fortunes of East Vancouver’s finest.

St. Thomas More's Bella Gaspar (left) gets off a shot while defended by Brookswood's Quinn Jasper during Sweet 16 round of 2019 TBI on Thursday at the LEC. (Photo by Larry Lawson property of Portland State athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved) (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

FINAL EDITION: Utter madness hits TBI 2019 Sweet 16! Three Double-A schools crash Friday’s Elite 8 quarterfinals

LANGLEY —What a Thursday of upsets here at TBI.The Sweet 16 for 2019 will be remembered for the way that Double A teams sent the bracket into disarray.Hands up if you had Double A’s Langley Christian, Britannia and St. Thomas More knocking off, respectively, Quad A’s Terry Fox, Riverside and Brookswood?Utter madness!We’ve got all eight […]

Yale's Brayden Stewart feeds the dangerous Lions' attack which was able to feast on the South Delta defence in Thursday's Fraser Valley Triple A Tier 1 semifinal played at the Abbotsford school. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Rugby

Yale’s pace wins race against No. 1 Sun Devils, pushes Abby’s Lions into FV AAA rugby title tilt against old foe Earl Marriott

ABBOTSFORD — Surrey’s Earl Marriott Mariners are about as expert a source as you’re apt to find on preparing for the Yale Lions within the high-stakes atmosphere of a B.C. high school rugby post-season.