Former SFU running back Bo Palmer (left) and former UBC quarterback Billy Greene (right) will not only talk about their best football memories and their lives after the game during a two-part Varsity Letters-The Podcast series set to begin Monday, each will also reflect on playing in the last contested Shrum Bowl back in 2010, and how much the rivalry game needs to come back following the pandemic. (Photos by SFU and UBC athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Football University Football

VL Podcast series debuts Monday: UBC’s Billy Greene, SFU’s Bo Palmer on Shrum Bowl’s 10-year absence and their own lives in and out of football!

LANGLEY — Plans for the resumption of the best football rivalry game in the province of B.C. were not actively underway when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March.Put it all together, and the fall of 2020 marks the 10th straight season that the Shrum Bowl, that formerly annual crosstown clash between Simon Fraser and UBC, […]

Holy Cross Crusaders senior Logan Mathers may have played on his school's senior varsity basketball team, but soccer is his blue-chip specialty and the Surrey United goalkeeper is on his way to a U Sports career starting this fall with Abbotsford's Fraser Valley Cascades. (Photo by Jeff Dadson property of Holy Cross athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Men's Soccer

Logan Mathers: How the Fraser Valley Cascades’ big-ticket soccer recruit learned what it means to truly stand tall

ABBOTSFORD — Logan Mathers has always been the tallest kid in the park.And although the 6-foot-6 goalkeeper ultimately reached his lofty height without one of those sudden spurts of verticality, the latest recruit of the Fraser Valley Cascades soccer team has never forgotten about the day he experienced his greatest growth.“In the moment it hurt,” […]

His eyes trained down the field, late Simon Fraser quarterback Bernd Dittrich is captured in an iconic pose. It's now been a decade-plus since the Austrian native passed away at the tender age of 21. His memory lives on through a scholarship endowment fund put in place by the SFU Football Alumni Association. (Photo by Ron Hole property of Simon Fraser athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Football

Simon Fraser’s Bernd Dittrich: A decade-plus after the iconic quarterback’s passing, a former teammate pays homage to his remarkable spirit and courage

ABBOTSFORD — Mathis Baumbach remembers how he never felt like a stranger in the summer of 2008, even though he had flown halfway around the world from Germany to join his new teammates on the Simon Fraser University football team.And all of that was due to the presence of one of the most iconic athletes […]

Members past and present from Simon Fraser's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee enjoyed a light moment during 2019 at the school's Terry Fox Field atop Burnaby Mountain. Among those pictured from the top: Emily Leung (golf), Nicole Anderson (soccer), Betsie de Beer (volleyball), Jordan Schmidt (track and field), Nathan Mead (football) and James Pak (football). (Photo property of Simon Fraser athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University

In times of pandemic, they are Simon Fraser’s most valuable team! How the student-led SAAC is making a daily difference atop Burnaby Mountain!

BURNABY — Unlike all of the traditional varsity teams competing for Simon Fraser University, their schedule is not built around home and road games, or geared towards the goal of competing in conference championships.Unknown to the vast majority of its own student body, they in fact do their best work while donning the civilian garb […]

David Penney (centre, 3) and the rest of the 2020-21 Simon Fraser basketball team will hold an intrasquad scrimmage early next month. (Photo property of Simon Fraser athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Men's Basketball

Simon Fraser men’s basketball: An ‘attitude of gratitude’ remains their daily motto as 2020-21 season hangs by a thread

BURNABY — Simon Fraser basketball still has about two weeks to wait before it learns whether or not it will be able to beat the odds and have some semblance of a conference basketball schedule.That said, the odds seem longer than a full-court Hail, Mary prayer to beat the buzzer at the team’s West Gym […]

The Fraser Valley Cascades' dynamic duo of forward Deanna Tuchscherer (left) and point guard Maddy Gobeil are a pair of 19-year-old Cascades finding their solution to the cancelled Canada West campaign by signing pro contracts to play in Europe over the fall-winter season. (Photos by Dan Kinvig property of UFV athletics 2020. All rights reserved. Photo graphic by Gabriel Lynn)
Feature University Women's Basketball

A SUNDAY READ: Banking their Euros! Postmarked ‘Abby, BC’, UFV’s teen duo of Tuchscherer & Gobeil find their bounce with overseas pro careers

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 […]

UBC's Kat Tolnai holds off Trinity Western's Jenaya Robertson during 2019 action. UBC and Trinity Western have won more national titles than any other programs in U Sports women's soccer history. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Soccer

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 […]

The Canada West announced on Friday that it is taking an extra 26 days to ponder the fate of its conference's winter sports, like women's basketball with a decision expected by Nov. 2. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
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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 […]

They still have plenty of obstacles to navigate en route to a GNAC volleyball campaign, but Friday's news of a spring season was good news for head coach Gina Schmidt's team, who are savouring their moments to be back in the gym together and training as a team. (Photo by Paul Yates property of SFU athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Volleyball

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.

The simple idea of collecting memories from its vast tree of alums has helped bring the UBC men's basketball program closer together than ever, despite the global pandemic. Pictured clockwise from bottom left are UBC stars Ron Thorsen (with ball), Paul Johannson and Kevin Hanson, and J.D. Jackson (14). (Photos property of UBC athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved. Photo collage by Gabriel Lynn)
Feature University Men's Basketball

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 […]