ABBOTSFORD — It was a basketball migration along a flight path neither could have ever anticipated just a handful of months ago.Yet this past Thursday, as both U SPORTS and its conference affiliate, Canada West, announced the official cancellation of the remainder of the 2020-21 university sports season (including basketball) due to the ongoing virulence […]
Author: Howard Tsumura
VL Podcast 10.15.20 edition: Abby football coach Jay Fujimura chats about Chase Claypool’s NFL success with the Pittsburgh Steelers
Welcome back to another edition of the Varsity Letters podcast! This week we welcome Abbotsford Secondary head football coach Jay Fujimura to chat about the record-setting weekend enjoyed by former Panthers’ great Chase Claypool. The four touchdowns Claypool scored for the Pittsburgh Steelers in their win over the Philadelphia Eagles represented a landmark moment […]
Chase Claypool: How four games from his standout 2015 senior season at Abby Senior left the clues which have now become conclusive with Steelers Nation!
ABBOTSFORD — Watching the breakthrough game of Chase Claypool’s young NFL career this past Sunday proved to be a prideful moment for John Barsby head football coach Rob Stevenson, despite the fact that back in 2015, his Bulldogs found themselves on the wrong end of a season-ending playoff loss fuelled by a performance many agree […]
No fans, no rankings for UBC vs. TWU! Strange times as two greatest programs in U Sports women’s soccer history clash Friday in game no one can see!
VANCOUVER — There’s a rumour going around that the two most successful women’s soccer programs in U Sports history had explored the idea of staging something akin to hockey’s 1972 Summit Series between the Canadians and the then-Soviet Union.With the Canada West having already cancelled the 2020 fall sports season due to COVID-19, imagine the […]
10.07.20: Varsity Letters-The Podcast salutes Worlds Teachers Day! Longtime teacher-coaches join Tsumura in saluting our classroom mentors!
Hey, it’s Howard and welcome to another episode of Varsity Letters—The Podcast. Today we open the show with a short tribute to the late Karin Khuong from Mike Carkner, one of her basketball coaches at Terry Fox Secondary in PoCo. Khuong, 16, lost a two-year battle with cancer on Sunday. The theme of the […]
Terry Fox’s Karin Khuong loses two-year battle with cancer, coach Carkner says her “courageous, fearless” influence continues to propel her Ravens
PORT COQUITLAM — Karin Khuong’s indomitable spirit has always been a vital part of the DNA of the Terry Fox Ravens’ senior girls basketball team.
It’s a win, win, win: UBC, Fraser Valley, Trinity Western AD’s trumpet Canada West’s vote to extend window of study on winter sports season
LANGLEY — Student-athletes from the Canada West got a little more reason to believe that winter can still be their sports wonderland.That seemed to be the consensus on Friday after the conference, which includes seven B.C. member universities, announced that it would extend the window of time during which it would determine the fate of […]
Simon Fraser fall sports like volleyball, soccer spring forward to 2021! “We still have that carrot to go after” says SFU coach Gina Schmidt
BURNABY — Simon Fraser University volleyball players know that a lot of things are still going to have to happen in order for some semblance of a Great Northwest Athletic Conference season to unfold in the new year.
09.30.19: Varsity Letters-The Podcast gets historical with UBC’s Wilson Wong, ex-UVic Vikes radio man Guy MacPherson
Varsity Letters — The Podcast is back on the air. Looking back isn’t our usual habit, but with the pandemic shutting down what would normally be a frenetic fall season of high school and university sports, we’re going to be heavy on history this week. UBC’s manager of Sports Information Wilson Wong joins us off […]
A Sunday Read: How the storytellers of UBC men’s basketball wrote their own history and strengthened bonds in a time of disconnect!
VANCOUVER — In these most disconnected and fractured of times, when our most basic instinct of reaching out to others in an act of the heart is so often compromised by the frustration of new realities, here is a story about finding connection.“Early in COVID, I would be out on my walks… I was doing […]