LANGLEY — There was a sense of the surreal in the air Thursday night at the Langley Events Centre.Just 96 fans, watching the first university basketball game held in the facility since Feb. 8. 2020, in what would officially be its smallest sell-out crowd ever.No one else was watching because there was no livestream outside […]
University
UFV’s Manpal Brar: After six years, two ACL surgeries… & two goals in two minutes, Cascades’ battle-scarred striker tells his story through a soccer rebirth!
ABBOTSFORD — Manpal Brar can’t look at the photograph above without feeling every step of his journey.“Every time I do, all the pain, all the tough times, they all came out in that very moment,” relates the Fraser Valley Cascades’ battle-scarred third-year forward.To pinpoint it precisely, we’re in the 36th minute of the Cascades’ Canada […]
Trinity Western opens its 2021-21 men’s U SPORTS season Thursday vs. Calgary! Debut for Spartans’ dynamic backcourt of Ja’Qualyn Gilbreath and Mason Bourcier!
LANGLEY — The longest dry spell in the history of U SPORTS basketball is set to end on Thursday.“I think we’re (one of) the first U SPORTS team in the country to play,” says Trinity Western Spartans’ men’s basketball coach Trevor Pridie, looking ahead to Thursday’s limited capacity pre-season exhibition opener against the powerhouse Calgary […]
A SUNDAY READ: Dani Langford’s passion for the poetry of motion: How SFU’s national championship MVP point guard found her way to the NBA’s Golden State Warriors!
Describing the intricacies of the human body in motion is a language unto itself.And for Danielle Langford, a young girl chasing her basketball dreams in the early-1990s, unlocking the true meaning of all that jargon was a constant source of fascination, something she herself realized every time the bumps and bruises the journey led her […]
After red-zone & special teams struggles add up to home-opening loss to Huskies, UBC coach Nill resolute: “I am not ready to give up on the season, it’s a baptism by fire!”
VANCOUVER — On Friday, the calendar turned to October as the UBC Thunderbirds kicked off one of their latest home-openers on record.Yet in the aftermath of a 43-15 loss to the visiting, No. 9-ranked Saskatchewan Huskies before a sell-out crowd of 2,500 at the stadium, just the team’s second game of a shortened six-game Canada […]
Ahead of Friday’s UBC home opener, Saskatchewan head coach Scott Flory tips his cap to a gutsy debut by ‘Birds rookie QB Garrett Rooker!
VANCOUVER — Last Saturday, there was a moment when UBC rookie Garrett Rooker showed us all both the kind of quarterback he already is and the kind of leader he is surely set to become.Rooker, in what may well be one of the best-ever statistical debuts by a ‘Birds freshman quarterback, went 32-of-45 for 372 […]
UBC football home-opener 2021: Young ‘Birds to get physical test from Sask. Huskies, says coach Nill: “They’re a tough, old-school program that plays the game like it’s the 50s, 60s and 70’s”
VANCOUVER — The more you play the Saskatchewan Huskies, the more things stay the same.That tweak on a classic cliche was so apropos this week, because when Varsity Letters chatted mid-week with UBC Thunderbirds’ veteran head coach Blake Nill, you could almost feel the need to check your figurative chin strap.Looking ahead to the ‘Birds […]
A SUNDAY READ: In trying times for Simon Fraser football, an old school linebacker named Griffin Barrett defines legacy through his own actions on Seniors Night!!
BURNABY — He’s survived and thrived through three different coaching regimes with the Simon Fraser Football Team, but on Saturday night, at his home away from home atop Burnaby Mountain, you could say that for the first time, something actually caught up to Griffin Barrett: The pre-game Seniors Night festivities which marked the final home […]
UBC takes one on the chin in season-opening setback in Alberta, yet the freshman QB-to-WR duo of Rooker and Soriano keeps fires of hope burning!
Garrett Rooker and Jason Soriano are going to put up some big numbers over their five seasons together with the UBC Thunderbirds.It’s a fact which was borne out on the turf at the University of Alberta’s Foote Field Turf on Saturday, where the 1-2 freshman punch of the Texas-raised quarterback Rooker and the former Vancouver […]
4 Questions for Mike Rigell: As SFU football prepares for 2021’s final home game Saturday, the coach chats on WR’s Morrison, Meadors, the defence and Seniors Day!
BURNABY MOUNTAIN — Week 4 and Seniors Day are two things that don’t go together in the lexicon of football, yet with summer barely over and the seats at the new SFU Stadium at Terry Fox still squeaky clean, that is the scene which has been set this Saturday night at Terry Fox Field.A curious […]