Burnaby South senior forward Sasha Vujisic, pictured in the 2018 B.C. Quad-A semifinal against Semiahmoo, will start the season on the comeback trail from a broken leg suffered in August. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of UBC athletics)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

Adversity reveals Burnaby South’s best side: As star senior Vujisic rehabs from broken leg, Rebels open hoops season as Quad-A No. 1

BURNABY — It’s not about their adversity. It’s about their reaction to it.And thus as a new B.C. senior boys high school basketball season tips off this Monday around the province, perhaps the biggest question to be answered is how the Burnaby South Rebels will cope with the fact that its best player, 6-foot-10 senior […]

King George's Nikola Guzina is one of a gaggle of returning talents for the Vancouver team starting at No. 1 in the B.C. Double-A rankings. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

Let the 75th season begin! B.C. Boys Big 10 preseason basketball rankings for all four provincial tiers

LANGLEY — Basketball is back!The B.C. senior boys basketball season will officially tip off this coming Monday, setting in motion a 75th anniversary season filled with ties to its glorious past.Look no further than our pre-season Quad-A rankings, populated by so many traditional powers.The Burnaby South Rebels, Vernon Panthers, Vancouver’s King George Dragons, and the […]

Fraser Valley Cascades' fifth-year guard Sukhjot Bains has looked to bring a more consistent shooting touch to the floor over his final season of university basketball. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Men's Basketball

UFV’s Sukhjot Bains: In his quest for long-distance shooting mojo, Cascades senior guard says it’s the mind that matters most

ABBOTSFORD — Last season, Sukhjot Bains traded snow for rain in a transfer from NCAA Div. 1 Wisconsin-Green Bay back to his home province and a spot in U Sports with Abbotsford’s Fraser Valley Cascades.Yet while frozen tundra gave way to puddles, the former high school superstar with Surrey’s Tamanawis Wildcats is the first to […]

Holy Cross senior defensive end Uyi Ologhola prepares to sack Robert Bateman quarterback Ty Martens in a AA Eastern Conference clash played in late October in Surrey. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Football

Uyi Ologhola: Holy Cross’ menacing sack artist might be a Crusaders’ hoops star first, but wow, have you seen this kid in a helmet?

SURREY — Back in the spring of 2017, when he was still only a ninth grader but playing senior varsity basketball at Holy Cross in Surrey, Uyi Ologhola was showing himself to be a kid already capable of stunning athletic feats.That season, he put his Crusaders’ teammates on his back in the B.C. Quad-A quarterfinals, […]

Feature High School Boys Basketball

TSUMURA BASKETBALL INVITATIONAL 2019: Your complete boys draw to the 20-team, four-day (Dec. 4-7) LEC hoops extravaganza!

LANGLEY — We’ve grown to 20 teams this season.The 2019 Tsumura Basketball Invitational will run Dec. 4-7 at the Langley Events Centre.Day 1 featured a new, eight-team opening round with the winners plugging into Day 2’s  16-team draw.Final Four Friday will be followed by championship Saturday as the best boys Quad-A and Triple-A teams take […]

Feature Podcast

The VL podcast for 11.06.19 welcomes VC Irish football’s Todd Bernett, DC Royals hoops coach Joe Enevoldson & Tupper hoops guru Jeff Gourley

Welcome to November! The 11th month means playoff football and the start of the basketball season, and our line-up of guests reflects just that. Vancouver College Fighting Irish head coach Todd Bernett stops by to break down his team’s incredible defensive play this season ahead of its Subway Bowl opener Saturday at home to Rutland. […]

Feature Podcast

Varsity Letters PODCAST 10.09.19: SFU basketball’s Steve Hanson, Tweedsmuir football’s Kurt Thornton and Centennial basketball’s Rob Sollero

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Varsity Letters — The Podcast! Basketball season is just around the corner and with it, the start of another season of the NCAA variety atop Burnaby Mountain. Simon Fraser Clan head coach Steve Hanson has orchestrated one of the biggest turnarounds in college basketball over the past […]

Calvin Westbrook, head coach of Haida Gwaii's Gudangaay Tlaatis’gaa Nay senior boys basketball team cheers on his charges at last March's B.C. championships at the LEC. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

Calvin Westbrook: How the record-setting G.P. Vanier & TWU guard found his coaching paradise amidst the remote splendour of Haida Gwaii

LANGLEY — It had been a long while since Calvin Westbrook had anything to do with a B.C. senior boys provincial basketball championship tournament. In fact you’d have to go back 13 years to find the last time.

Liam McChesney of the Charles Hays Rainmakers is headed to NCAA Div. 1 Utah State. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of UBC athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball University Men's Basketball

Varsity Letters B.C. Recruits List 2019: Where 88 boys basketball prospects are headed this coming season

LANGLEY — Even over an offseason in which the majority of local university programs are not brining in big classes, there almost 100 names to note provincially in the world of high school-to-post-secondary men’s basketball. All told, that adds up to 182 names between our boys and girls lists, among the most we’ve ever had.

Flanked by teammates Josh Hamulas (left) and Austin Swedish, Lord Tweedsmuir senior guard Patrick Jonas met the crowd at December's TBI 2018 with a brave smile. (Photo property of Wilson Wong 2019. All rights reserve
Feature High School Boys Basketball University Men's Basketball

Patrick Jonas: Despite his wounded knee, Tweedsmuir senior set a new ‘bench’ mark for leadership during championship season

LANGLEY — Patrick Jonas was such a bad shooter that his teammates called him Brick Squad. He was only in the eighth grade at the time, a stage at which the cloth we’re actually cut from is still unwoven.