Broxx Comia (5) and the rest of the New Westminster Hyacks opened the 2017 season in California Friday with a victory. (File photo by Alan Wardle)
Feature High School Football

Hyacks’ defence looks special in debut, New West grabs dynamic victory in Southern Cal

Varsity Letters welcomes a new season and its first-ever B.C. High School Football Report after over a decade at The Province. We hope you’ll be with us all season for the most comprehensive provincial football reports in the nation!NEW WESTMINSTER 22 at LINFIELD CHRISTIAN (Cal.) 9

Fifth-year senior middle blocker Madison Power (11) brings a bushel of intangibles to the Clan volleyball team. (Ron Hole/SFU athletics)
Feature University Women's Volleyball

The Power of Maddy: Clan senior Madison Power a foundational key in success of SFU volleyball

BURNABY MOUNTAIN — Ask Gina Schmidt about her first official day on the job as the then-new head coach of the Simon Fraser Clan volleyball team and you get a story filled with both comedy and karma.“I watched one practice where they weren’t really doing a lot of game play,” Schmidt remembers of a day […]

UBC receiver Will Watson was a key part of the 'Birds dynamic first-half offence Wednesday night in Kamloops. (Richard Lam, UBC athletics photo)
Feature University Football

TSUMURA: My ‘Top 5 takeaways’ from ‘Birds preseason football opener as UBC tops Alberta 33-30

The UBC Thunderbirds’ youthful ways led to some anxious moments on Wednesday.Yet its first-unit players, in all three phases, looked as devastating as they ever have as the Blake Nill-era entered its third season in the Southern Interior.With quarterback Michael O’Connor and a healthy UBC offence, bolstered by a deep core of running backs and […]

UBC freshman running back Shane Noel (right) takes a handoff from quarterback Parker Simson during fall camp practice in Vancouver. (Richard Lam/UBC athletics)
Feature University Football

‘Sugar Shane’ brings sweet feet to Thunderbird Stadium, ex-STMC back ready to take flight with ‘Birds

VANCOUVER — If the reports from training camp carry over into the regular season, then a popular touchdown anthem at Thunderbird Stadium this fall is going to be a sound bite of the line ‘Sugar, Sugar’ from that infectious 1969 bubble-gum pop smash by The Archies.

Charandeep Rangi (right) of the Fraser Valley Cascades steps in front of Simon Fraser Clan star midfielder Adam Jones on Saturday in Abbotsford. (Varsity Letters photo by Howard Tsumura)
Feature University Men's Soccer

UFV men’s soccer fashions resilient roster, young Cascades end preseason in 1-1 draw with SFU Clan

ABBOTSFORD —More depth. Better recruits.And maybe a chance to improve on the school’s U Sports’ regular-season wins record from a season ago?It’s a credit to the Fraser Valley Cascades men’s soccer program that those are its most prevalent preseason themes because if you do the math on paper, the team which opens Canada West conference […]

Steveston-London grad Fardaws Aimaq (centre) learned all about the big business of college basketball recruiting this summer. (Photo by Dan Kinvig/UFV athletics)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

SLSS’ Fardaws Aimaq takes aim at D1 hoops career with prep stop at Maine’s Bridgton Academy

RICHMOND — Along a basketball journey which has seen him become one of most prodigious stat-line stuffers in the recent history of B.C. high school basketball, Fardaws Aimaq has grown to a half-inch shy of 6-foot-11.Yet the biggest growth spurt that the 2017 grad of Richmond’s Steveston-London Secondary has undergone has happened in the days […]

Simon Fraser freshman Connor Glennon (right) opened his Clan career with the game-winning goal as SFU beat Kerman Pannu (left), Manraj Bains and the rest of the UBC Thunderbirds 2-0. (Varsity Letters photo by Howard Tsumura)
Feature University Men's Soccer

Clan strikes early, frosh talent fantastic as SFU topples UBC 2-0 in season-opening superpower clash

VANCOUVER — When it comes to setting the bar in the preseason, Simon Fraser’s Clint Schneider and Mike Mosher of UBC both reach for the sky.In fact if you read the preseason stories on two of Canada’s elite men’s university soccer programs on each school’s official website, both began with the two head coaches re-affirming […]

Delaney Aikens of Shawnigan Lake will play her collegiate rugby for the UBC Thunderbirds. (Varsity Letters photo by Wilson Wong/UBC athletics)
Feature High School University

2017 FINAL BC Recruits List baseball, hockey, athletics, field hockey, rowing, wrestling, LAX, golf

It has been so rewarding seeing all of the response and interest to the 11th annual B.C. Recruits List Week which wraps up today with our overall list! After spending its first decade in the pages of The Province newspaper, it has found a happy home here at Varsity Letters

Kelowna's Grant Shephard makes his return to Canada, signing with the UBC Thunderbirds after one season at Florida's Montverde Academy. (Wilson Wong, UBC athletics)
Feature High School University

Varsity Letters’ B.C. Recruits List 2017: Men’s and women’s basketball

Welcome to Day 4 of Varsity Letters’ 2017 Recruits List week.Thus far we’ve presented soccer, football and volleyball. Today, it’s time to look at basketball.The following is our schedule for the rest of the week:Saturday, July 8 — The entire list, including baseball, cross-country, field hockey, golf, hockey, lacrosse, rowing, rugby, swimming, track and field, […]