By Howard Tsumura
(VarsityLetters.ca and Special for Simon Fraser Athletics)
BURNABY — If the Buchanan Cup could speak, the first thing you’d hear would be a chuckle most identifiable as a last laugh.
Too many times a pawn in the machinations of the Lower Mainland’s two most enduring university athletic programs, it has nonetheless aged with dignity to remain the timeless emblem of the most tradition-laden rivalry game in all of B.C. basketball.
Alas, after a two-year hiatus, the host Simon Fraser Red Leafs and the visiting UBC Thunderbirds will once again battle for the shiny golden bauble, this time atop Burnaby Mountain, Nov. 15 (7 p.m.) in the West Gym. You can purchase tickets by clicking here, and visit the Simon Fraser athletics site by clicking here.
For the record, this season marks just the 38th year in 58-year history of the rivalry that the Buchanan Cup will have been contested, with UBC holding a 20-16-1 advantage.
The trophy was originally donated by the late John Buchanan during his extended tenure as SFU’s pioneering recreation director, but the trophy bearing his name was not presented until the second year of the series in 1968-69. Buchanan, who also founded SFU’s men’s soccer team and golf programs, passed away in 2017 at the age of 77.
And perhaps the trophy’s most enduring quality has been the way it has held name-brand recognition for a game which had grown to become appointment viewing — an uninterrupted 19-season run from 1979-80 through 1997-98 — but in more recent times has been played just three times over the last 15 years.
Two Simon Fraser players — Kevin Shaw and Sean Burke — high school teammates at North Vancouver’s Argyle Secondary before spending five seasons (2005-2010) alongside each other in the SFU backcourt, are each now 38-year-old basketball dads who not only understand the momentum that comes every time the series gets a re-start, but the centrifugal effect that could be in play if it was to ever become a permanent annual fixture in the match book of both schools.
“You start to bleed the colours after your first year or so and it became a real big deal for me and for us as a team,” said Shaw, who along with Burke and the rest of the fourth- and fifth-year players on the roster ended their SFU careers in 2009-10 ahead of the program’s move to NCAA Division 2 the next season.
“It was as big a crosstown rivalry as you could get, and that’s what it felt like when I was playing in it,” said Shaw, who along with Burke has continued to maintain strong ties to the program through the SFU Men’s Basketball Alumni Association.
“I remember vividly that playing in the Buchanan Cup felt like you were playing a playoff game.”
Indeed, when Simon Fraser defeated UBC 90-82 in 2021-22 season’s game, the most recent Buchanan Cup played atop Burnaby Mountain, the atmosphere was electric from the pre-game to the final horn.
“It creates that sense of pride when you really show up with your best for your school, your community and for all the student-athletes,” added Burke. “And that is something I remember… that the Buchanan Cup wasn’t just between SFU and UBC basketball (teams). The entire athletic department came out. The football team came out. The soccer team came out. You weren’t just playing for your sport, you were playing for your entire school.”
Despite everything that has changed over the past half-century plus that is something which thankfully has remained the same.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
The Buchanan Cup started in the 1967-68 season, two years after the opening of Simon Fraser University, in the era of long-play vinyl records.
Despite its on-again, off-again status within the B.C. sports culture it has been played alongside the eras of 8-track and cassette tapes, compact discs, the return of vinyl and now the advent of digital streaming.
And like the changing face of recorded music, the Buchanan Cup has gone through almost as many different format changes of its own.
Two-game total points winners, best-of-three winners and single game winners.
There was even a little confusion stemming from those years when SFU was a member of U SPORTS and thus played UBC on multiple occasions as part of its then-Canada West league schedule.
Designating one of the games as the Buchanan Cup game and the other as a regular league game may not have diminished the competitive level for the players, but for many fans, it unwittingly took what was a sense of occasion out of the proceedings.
Newspaper articles from the 2009-10 season, including one by your authour, document the fact that the two scheduled games were split, but make no mention of the Buchanan Cup at all.
Further inspection of engravings on the Cup itself earlier this month, however, revealed that UBC was the winner, beating SFU 77-68.
There was even one season (1981-82) when the two schools were tied at one win apiece and the third-and-deciding game of the series was not played.
So where do we start?
It seems somehow fitting that right about now a Buchanan Cup origin story needs to be told. So here we go.
BUCHANAN CUP 101 AND MORE
It took two seasons before the long-established UBC men’s basketball program deemed the so-called ‘new kids on the block’ from Burnaby Mountain as a worthy enough foe for them to dress their actual varsity team for the crosstown clash.
In the fall of 1965, the Simon Fraser campus had just opened, and with it athletic director Lorne Davies’ pioneering vision of playing U.S. competition and awarding athletic scholarships to its student-athletes.
In that 1965-66 sports season, the first-ever athletic event played on the new campus was the first game of a home-and-away between the UBC Braves JV team and the SFU varsity, the latter a start-up roster culled by the program’s first head coach, Jon-Lee Kootnekoff, or ‘Kooty’ as he was fondly known.
Simon Fraser topped UBC 65-51 in that first-ever game, played in the sparkling new West Gym.
In the return engagement at UBC, SFU was again victorious, this time by a 76-65 score.
Click here to watch highlights from the 1965 SFU vs. UBC game
But after Simon Fraser beat UBC’s JV’s again the next season, the Thunderbirds finally decided to send their full varsity squad to oppose their upstart Burnaby rivals.
Thus the first game of the two-game total point series, still a year from being labelled the Buchanan Cup, was played on Feb. 10, 1968 at UBC’s own War Memorial Gymnasium.
These days, looking back in the figurative rearview mirror, the first ‘official’ SFU vs. UBC men’s basketball game deserves its rightful place in the pantheon of the most groundbreaking games in this province’s hoop history.
And if you delve a little deeper into the history of that opening game, you have to thank the basketball gods that it was not some faceless, nameless run-of-the-mill encounter.
In fact, upon closer inspection, and with over a half-century of perspective behind it, the first-ever Buchanan Cup game was an absolute classic from its 11th-hour shenanigans to its Cinderella finish.
WHAT A RIVALRY GAME IS ALL ABOUT
When fans of both schools picked up their copies of The Province newspaper on the day of the game, Feb. 10, 1968, a story by reporter Harrill Bjornson would have caught their collective eye, announcing itself under the headline ‘UBC-SFU competition in doubt after theft’.
A day earlier, the equipment room at Simon Fraser had been broken into and all of the men’s team’s uniforms stolen.
Both schools were warned that if any demonstrations by either side occurred that evening at War Memorial Gym, that the game would be instantly cancelled.
Bjornson quoted SFU athletics’ boss Lorne Davies as stating: “The rivalry between the schools is a tremendous thing, but when students become involved in breaking and entering and theft, that is going beyond the prank stage.”
Added UBC AD Bus Phillips: “…unless the students show a greater degree of maturity in future, we will have to re-examine the idea of having teams from the two schools meeting in competition.”
A curious detail from the story: The theft included not only the home-and-away singlets of the varsity team, but of the JV team as well, and that “…equipping the teams with new uniform jerseys cost the (SFU) athletic department over $100.”
So what happened in the end?
It was reported in next day’s edition of The Province and The Vancouver Sun that the jerseys had been returned by the thieves before the game on Saturday night.
NOT A GRAND ENTRANCE, BUT A GRAND FINISH
Oh, yeah… there was actually a game played.
But hot on the heels of the stolen singlets, before Simon Fraser even took to the court, there was yet another legendary moment.
Alex Devlin didn’t play in that first Buchanan Cup game, but the former SFU star, who joined the program two seasons later as a freshman ahead of the 1969-70 season, tells a story of the ignominy which awaited the team just minutes before the 1968 game’s opening tip.
“There was this little room at War Gym, I think it was for the janitors,” relates Devlin of a storage room which was located at the bottom of a stairway, off to the side of the foyer as you entered and exited the now-historic gymnasium.
“It was big enough, so Kooty took his whole team in there before their first big game, “ he said of what served as the SFU locker room. “Kooty was an emotional coach and he got them all charged up, they were so pumped up.
“So then they all gave a cheer and said ‘Let’s go,’ and they were going to rip the door off and go running up the stairs into the gym and blow them away. But it was locked,” continues Devlin, 74, who still can’t help but chuckle in incredulity all these years later. “It was locked.”
The incident is confirmed by the coach himself in his 1990 autobiography ‘from Kooty with Love’ in which he wrote “… the team was in a frenzy as we broke the huddle with a resounding yell and charged for the locker-room door — only to find it locked from the outside. It took 10 minutes to get out and we were late getting onto the floor for the tip-off. To add salt to our wounds, the partisan crowd booed us and the referees gave us a technical foul for delaying the game. We were incensed; UBC never had a chance.”
By all reports, Simon Fraser came out as if fired from a cannon and before 3,700 largely pro-UBC fans, the visitors stunned their hosts by a 64-39 score.
Brian MacKenzie, Gunnar Kuehn, Bob Wright and Don Higham were among those leading the charge for the winners that night.
“Did you see that defence?” Kootnekoff yelled amidst the post-game celebration. “We didn’t give them much to shoot at all night.
Said UBC head coach Peter Mullins afterwards: “They fully deserved their win.”
The UBC student newspaper, The Ubyssey, in a story authoured by Bob Banno, may have overstated the loss, yet the story’s tone clearly reflected, from UBC’s historic vantage, just how much SFU’s win was considered a massive upset, both on the scoreboard and to its collective ego.
“It was the first time in living memory the ‘Birds were held to less than 40 points. It was the first time in living memory the Birds hit on such a low percentage (22.9) of their field-goal attempts. It was the first time in living memory they connected on fewer than 50 per cent of their free throw attempts.”
And the headline on that story?
‘Basketball Birds play worst game in history’.
Quite a claim when you consider that UBC’s first men’s basketball team, as documented in the comprehensive ‘Flight of the Thunderbirds’ by Don Wells, was fielded some 52 years previous, in 1915-16.
Thirteen days later, UBC went to SFU and beat their hosts 79-61 but still lost the two-game total-point series 125-118.
From that point forward, it was game on, and in those early years, without any kind of high-tech promotion, almost three decades before the widespread arrival of the internet, the Buchanan Cup quickly outgrew the confines of its on-campus playing sites.
As SFU sports historian Wilson Wong relays, by the very next season, the new Pacific Coliseum was the game’s home for a magical four straight seasons.
It was part of an era in which UBC would grow into a Canadian university power by winning two national titles over a span of three seasons.
Simon Fraser repeated as champs in 1968-69, beating UBC 57-50 and 75-65 in games played Feb. 8 and 10 respectively at Vancouver’s new sports palace.
The Thunderbirds, however, came back with a vengeance in the 1969-70 season, one which would be capped by its first national title, overwhelming SFU 103-67 in the first single-game format championship of the series.
The ‘Birds came back again the next season to win the Buchanan Cup 66-62 on Feb. 15, 1971.
Yet to show just how far the Simon Fraser program had come in just the seven seasons since the school’s opening, they beat UBC by an 81-68 score before 4,000 fans on Jan, 17, 1972 at the Pacific Coliseum, a result which came just a couple of months ahead of UBC defeating Acadia to claim its second national title in three seasons.
“It was intense, yeah,” stated Devlin, who in that 1972 Buchanan Cup win for SFU scored 15 points and grabbed 15 rebounds. “You didn’t want to lose that game. Everything was on the line. Our reputation and theirs.
“What we always reminded them,” added a chuckling Devlin of the Thunderbirds, “was ‘UBC, the No. 1 college team in Canada, but the No. 2 college team in Vancouver.”
The rivalry seemed almost too good to be true, and in actual fact it was, because with the 1970’s just underway and Simon Fraser leading the overall series 3-2, the next game wouldn’t be played until the 1979-80 season.
University vs Central Oklahoma University in Day 1 of the CCA Division 2 Canadian Tip-Off Classic
BUCHANAN CUP’S BASKETBALL TIES THAT BIND
As we said off the top, perhaps the greatest legacy of the Buchanan Cup is that the game itself has never failed to capture our attention.
From the heights of its golden eras through the low ebbs of more lean periods like the one being presently endured, it has always been a hit at the turnstiles.
So when Simon Fraser introduced its new head men’s basketball coach in the spring, it’s no surprise that one of the first things Barnaby Craddock heard from the school’s fan base was the desire to have the Buchanan Cup once again take its rightful place as a feature in the schedule of both the Red Leafs and the UBC Thunderbirds.
“When I got the job, a lot of alumni and people in the community I’ve known my whole life said ‘You need to make the Buchanan Cup go’ and so we worked to make that happen right from Day 1,” said Craddock, a Vancouver native and graduate of Lord Byng Secondary who is just now entering his third decade as a head men’s university basketball coach in Canada. “And hopefully it’s something we can keep going through future years and make it an annual thing because it’s so good for basketball in the community.
“There are certain events that are just big events for B.C. and the Lower Mainland, and the Buchanan Cup needs to continue to be one of those.”
That’s the thing about the game.
Even if you’ve just dipped your toes into B.C.’s basketball waters, you inevitably become connected to the lore of the SFU-UBC basketball rivalry.
From the very beginning, as Simon Fraser set itself apart as the new, pioneering school which would play a U.S.-based schedule and offer athletic scholarships, it provided the contrast to the well-established blue-and-gold Thunderbirds from Point Grey.
“It kind of made for the fighting little brother against the much-older big brother-type,” remarked Doug Eberhardt, the current UBC assistant coach who played in two Buchanan Cups in the 1980s for the ‘Birds.
“This game is unbelievable for the basketball community as a whole,” continued Eberhardt, who remembers attending Buchanan Cup games when the series resumed during his Grade 11 and 12 high school years in Vancouver. “You don’t have to be an alumnus of UBC or SFU to have great interest in the game. If you’re just a part of the basketball community, as infrequent as it’s been, it remains a huge thing for everyone because of all the positives it creates.”
Indeed it touches so many, including real basketball families.
Over the weekend, as SFU hosted the CCA Canadian Classic Div. 2 tip-off tournament at the Langley Events Centre, Red Leafs’ transfer forward Roko Maric expressed how excited he was to have the chance to play against his older brother, UBC forward Toni Maric.
And then there’s Breanne Watson, Simon Fraser’s Director of Athletics.
A Richmond native who later started three seasons in the Pac 12 for the Washington Huskies, Watson grew up in a basketball-mad family which included her younger brother Kyle Watson, himself a proud UBC Thunderbird for three seasons from 2007-10.
So you can imagine how the sibling rivalry has been escalating as the countdown to the big game draws nearer.
“I think that when you talk about the history of the Buchanan Cup, it re-ignites sort of this pride for the alumni of both schools,” Breanne Watson begins.
“I can tell you right now, my brother can’t stand that I’m at SFU because he’s a UBC alum. I think that’s a really cool piece of sport, with crosstown rivalries and people getting excited about it… it just brings out a different kind of emotion from other games.
“So being able to bring this game back to Burnaby Mountain, and hopefully to Point Grey next year, I think it just galvanizes our whole community.”
The sound you hear in the tone of anyone talking about the Buchanan Cup these days is indeed excitement.
For Eberhardt, the lore of the cup itself endures.
At age 62, all it takes is uttering the words Buchanan Cup’ for him to take a quick trip back 42 years, to his first season at UBC (1983-84) when the team finished with a 2-8 league record, but made its season by beating Simon Fraser in the crosstown rivalry series.
“We won the Buchanan Cup that year, but afterwards we celebrated a bit too hard and someone dropped the trophy and I remember that it got dented,” laughs Eberhardt.
“So then back when UBC won it (in 2022-23),” he continued of what was the most recent game in the series, “I had to go back and check.”
What did he find?
“It’s still got the dent,” said Eberhardt. “It has remained to this day. It was still there.”
Yet whether ignored, put in mothballs, or dropped and dented, it has endured.
And now you know so much better why, if the Buchanan Cup could speak, the first sound you’d hear is a chuckle most identifiable as a last laugh.
(An author’s note — Thanks to all of those who answered the call for interviews and to the loyal B.C. basketball fan base who continue to support high school, college and university hoops through our changing times. A special thanks to Simon Fraser’s Wilson Wong, Tiffani Martinez and Breanne Watson for all their assistance, and for sharing a love for what events like the Buchanan Cup mean to our amateur sports community)
If you’re reading this story or viewing these photos on any website other than one belonging to a university athletic department, it has been taken without appropriate permission. In these challenging times, true journalism will survive only through your dedicated support and loyalty. VarsityLetters.ca and all of its exclusive content has been created to serve B.C.’s high school and university sports community with hard work, integrity and respect. Feel free to drop us a line any time at howardtsumura@gmail.com.
Great article, Howard. Brings back a lot of memories.
Great article, Howard. Brings back a lot of memories, especially of those early ’70’s UBC powerhouses when i was ay UBC.