ABBOTSFORD — For about as long as Julia Tuchscherer can remember, she’s had a knack for making all of the numbers add up.She’s even done it in these challenging times, heading down the home stretch of her Grade 11 year at Chilliwack’s G.W. Graham Secondary with a 4.0 grade point average within a core of […]
University
A Sunday Read: SFU women’s basketball celebrates the power of connection, uniting past and present through its IMPACT mentorship program!
BURNABY — There are many variations of the parable which informs us that in learning we teach, and that in teaching we learn.Boil those words down to their essence, however, and what remains is the singular feeling of a journey coming full circle.Laura Kalenuik, née van den Boogaard, like so many other former student-athletes, has […]
The Luyken Legacy: For UFV’s father-daughter duo of Anthony & Aieisha, building community through basketball is a lifelong calling!
ABBOTSFORD — Anthony and Aieisha Luyken are a father and daughter with a most special tie to the sport of basketball.Today, Varsity Letters is happy to help share, through the efforts of one of our founding partners, the Fraser Valley Cascades, the story of their incredible, life-defining love affair with the sport and its impact […]
Robert Sacre: Energized by his Gonzaga/Lakers past, Fraser Valley Bandits’ new assistant GM makes a hoops homecoming!
He attended Vancouver Grizzlies games as a kid, then went on to play in the NBA for the Los Angeles Lakers.And through it all, it’s hard to think of anyone who has more passionately repped B.C.’s Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley regions as rightful professional basketball territory than Robert Sacre.With all of that in mind, […]
VL Podcast 03.10.21: Simon Fraser coach Steve Hanson reflects on what March Madness means to him, including a thrilling B.C. AAA title in 2012 at Terry Fox!
Welcome back to Varsity Letters-The Podcast! This week, as the Langley Events Centre re-plays classic B.C. boys basketball championship finals, we have a guest who has coached in one of the most memorable finishes ever. Before he assumed the head role with SFU men’s basketball in 2016-17, Steve Hanson was the co-coach of the Terry […]
Sage Stobbart: Seycove’s former B.C. AA MVP turns her shot-blocking/three-point shooting skills into a sweet science with D1 UC Davis Aggies!
As an environmental sciences major at UC Davis, Sage Stobbart is gaining an ecological understanding that makes her feel more at home than ever in the great outdoors.Yet ask the redshirt junior forward about the other side of her life as a student-athlete, that of the agile and versatile 6-foot-3 junior forward with the Aggies’ […]
Richmond’s rebounder for the ages: A craving for caroms has Utah Valley’s Fardaws Aimaq treading on historic NCAA Div. 1 hardwood!
As the NCAA men’s Div. 1 regular season draws towards its completion, the microscope trained one of B.C.’s high school basketball’s most remarkable grads has continued to intensify.Yet nothing is slowing down the per-game rebounding average of former Steveston-London grad Fardaws Aimaq, the 6-foot-11, 260-pound redshirt sophomore centre with the Utah Valley Wolverines.With four more […]
A Sunday Read: After making the biggest shot of his life, UFV Cascades’ guard Jordyn Sekhon reflects on the power of preparation!
It was the late, great John Wooden who once quipped: “When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.”Delivered a full half-century ago, in an era where catchphrases weren’t so immediately fated to become commercialized cliches, the wise words of the Wizard of Westwood have retained a dignity and a depth of meaning so instantly relevant […]
A Sunday Read: The origin story of Victoria’s Sophie de Goede! At 21, Canada’s rising rugby superstar makes her mark with London’s Saracens
Last October, as she packed her rugby bags pre-flight for what was to be an extended overseas professional residency in the birthplace of her sport, Sophie de Goede made sure to leave a little room for the other half of her athletic alter-ego.“I brought my basketball shoes over, hoping that I would be able to […]
UFV’s Tripat Sandhu: Even in a season lost to pandemic, Cascades’ soccer visionary shows us all what it takes to be a true MVP!
ABBOTSFORD — The official records will tell you, that in the history of Canadian university sport, the 2020-21 season simply did not exist.Whistles were not blown. Eligibility was not taken. Games were not played.Yet despite the bottom-line realities of COVID-19, there was, thankfully, nothing stopping this country’s student-athletes from still being students.In honour of today’s […]