Fraser Valley Cascades' point guard Parm Bains contends with UNBC Timberwolves' Jovan Leamy (left) and Vaggelis Loukas during Canada West clash earlier this season at the Envision Financial Athletic Centtre in Abbotsford. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2018. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Men's Basketball

The unknown Cascade who made the grade: One big break was all Parm Bains needed to lead UFV hoops in scoring

ABBOTSFORD — He had no team to belong to, and he was running out of dreams to chase. Two years ago, for the first time since he’d given himself to a life in basketball, Parm Bains was a student, and not a student-athlete.

Amanda Thompson's journey to a third U Sports season with the Fraser Valley Cascades has taken a mountain of perseverance. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property Fraser Valley Cascades athletics)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

UFV’s Amanda Thompson: Battle-scarred but unbowed, three knee surgeries in four years no match for Cascades’ gritty guard

ABBOTSFORD — Last April, in the moments after surgeons operated on her battle-scarred left knee for the third time in just under four years, Amanda Thompson cleared her head and braced herself for the news.

G.W. Graham Grizzlies' star senior Deanna Tuchscherer has elected to stay home for her university career and announced that she will play for her father Al as a member of the Fraser Valley Cascades beginning in the fall of 2019. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of UFV Athletics)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

Deanna Tuchscherer: After searching far and wide, GWG’s star senior will play for dad Al and her hometown Fraser Valley Cascades

ABBOTSFORD — Deanna Tuchscherer has always trusted her basketball skills.But it took a summer spent away from home, in the company of some of the nation’s best young talent, for the rising 6-foot-1 senior guard/forward to realize that it was also okay to trust her inner basketball voice.What it kept telling her, and what she […]

Seina Kashima (9) has made her run to the front of pack among Canada West seniors, leading her Trinity Western Spartans to a 9-1-0 record. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca)
Feature University Women's Soccer

Just call her Super Seina: Over five seasons, Trinity Western’s Kashima has perfected the gift of giving

LANGLEY — Ask Seina Kashima about it, and she can’t help but label it a re-invention of her soccer brain. Makes sense. Prodigious scorer with the Whitecaps girls elite REX program joins the nation’s most decorated women’s program since the turn of the century, and over her five-year career with the Trinity Western Spartans turns into the […]

After a rather anonymous start to his post-secondary soccer career, North Vancouver's Kristian Yli-Hietanen (left) has risen to the upper reaches of the Canada West's goal-scoring class as a fourth-year striker with the UBC Thunderbirds.
North Delta native Brittney Zacharuk has becoming a leading force in her fourth season with Abbotsford's Fraser Valley Cascades. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of UFV athletics)
Feature University Women's Soccer

UFV’s Brittney Zacharuk: Cascades’ captain combines nails and glue as catalyst for Canada West consistency

ABBOTSFORD — Toughness and togetherness are a pair of attributes celebrated within the culture of one of the youngest U Sports women’s soccer teams in the nation.

UFV Cascades' Gurmaan Jhaj attempts to split through the UBC defence during Canada West action earlier this season. With Jhaj igniting the offence, UFV is the only team in Canada West to take point from the Thunderbirds this season. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of UFV Cascades' athletics)
Feature University Men's Soccer

UFV’s Gurmaan Jhaj: Whether in sport, the classroom or in business, Cascades’ striker is all about his goals

ABBOTSFORD — Gurmaan Jhaj may have just turned 22, but he’s already an expert in sharpening the saw and building success brick by brick.

Trinity Western's fifth-year senior midfielder Joel Waterman (right) wants to help lead the Spartans back to the U Sports' national championship tournament. (Photo courtesy UBC Okanagan athletics)
Feature University Men's Soccer

Joel Waterman: TWU’s tide is high and so are its hopes as Spartans’ soccer feeds off the presence and purpose its fifth-year leader

LANGLEY — It may be the simplest game of Xs and Os ever invented, yet the ability to consistently win in the ancient discipline of tic-tac-toe doesn’t come without a complex level of sureness and clarity, which in intangible terms, might be best described as having an instant presence.

Fraser Valley Cascades' freshman midfielder Anthony Vega (left, 5), a New Westminster Secondary grad, is one of a gaggle of rookies populating the roster of the Abbotsford-based U Sports program this season. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters)
Feature University Men's Soccer

UFV men’s soccer 2018: Cascades undergo a true culture change as 15 pure freshmen form program’s new foundation

ABBOTSFORD — It takes a pretty honest architect to unroll the blueprint and wield the eraser when the plans for a newly-poured foundation have barely had the opportunity to settle.

Swimmer Ruishen Yu of Surrey's Fraser Heights Secondary begins his university sports career in the fall with the UBC Thunderbirds. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics)
Feature High School University

Destination: University! Varsity Letters’ 2018 BC Recruits List charts path of 986 student-athletes in 18 different sports

LANGLEY — We put a cap-and-gown finish to 2018’s B.C. Recruits List Week here at VarsityLetters by presenting our entire list today, with baseball, softball, rowing, field hockey, hockey, golf, lacrosse, rugby, swimming, tennis, fencing and wrestling. If you know of names we’ve missed, let us know! Full instructions are below and we will update throughout […]