Admitting later to massive case of nerves, SFU's Kristie Elliott came up short on this 39-yard field goal try in the first half of Saturday's game at Oregon's Linfield Wildcats. (Photo by Naji Sakir property of Linfield athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Football

“I’m getting chills…” says Simon Fraser’s Kristie Elliott, after 21-year-old kicker becomes Canada’s first female to score in a university football game!

There is a homespun appeal to Kristie Elliott’s personality that is so endearing, that even on her biggest days, it comes out of her soul and speaks as if a wide-eyed kid at the candy store.Saturday was one of those days for the Simon Fraser football team’s place-kicker.So, how does it feel, she’s asked, to […]

Simon Fraser's fourth-year sophomore slinger Justin Seiber heated up late as a ray lof light at Linfield on Saturday for the winless SFU football team. (Photo property of Linfield athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Football

As Simon Fraser suffers bleak loss at Linfield, super-soph QB Justin Seiber comes out of mothballs to show he’s still got the shine

Hey Justin Seiber, welcome back.Simon Fraser football fans hearty enough to follow their heroes into the second half of Saturday’s disappointing 56-20 road loss in Oregon to the Div. 3 Linfield Wildcats were no doubt looking for something to hang their hats on.And so amidst the expected fault lines of youth which have clearly been […]

Despite the team's early-season carousel at quarterback, Carson Graham is 1-1 following a gutsy second-half performance by senior pivot Logan Mellish, a fact that has Eagles' head coach Brian Brady beaming with pride. Carson Graham topped Hansdsworth in the annual Buchan Bowl game Friday morning. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Football

FINAL EDITION: 09.10.21 Varsity Letters’ B.C. High School Football report: Friday Night Lights late-night edition!

Welcome to Week 1 of Varsity Letters’ B.C. High School Football ReportAs this is the first time we’ve posted with a full schedule of games since late in 2019, remember that in order to read about all of the contests played in our Friday Night Lights editions, you’ve got to keep checking back throughout the […]

As a Grade 8, Notre Dame quarterback Aiden Domino led his team past Lord Tweedsmuir to win the Subway Bowl Quadra Cup B.C. title in a 2017 game staged at B.C. Place. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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The Domino Effect: Notre Dame’s Aiden Domino, who plays a rare double as a dual QB/DE brings a Joe Kapp mentality and physique to Jugglers’ Friday opener vs. Centennial!

VANCOUVER — Notre Dame Jugglers head football coach Denis Kelly always knew his starting quarterback was a big, strapping kid.Turns out, as the Jugglers prepare to open the 2021 season Friday night (7:30 p.m.) at Burnaby Lakes against Coquitlam’s Centennial Centaurs, that Aiden Domino is even bigger than previously advertised.Add to the fact that the […]

They first met in 1993 at Trinity Western when Rob Giesbrecht (right) was a third-year player and Graham Roxburgh a first-year men's assistant coach. Twenty-eight years later, their friendship endures as the pair reunite for the 2021 Canada West season. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of Trinity Western athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Men's Soccer

TWU women’s soccer 2021: Seventeen years after an historic run to 2004 national title, Giesbrecht, Roxburgh re-unite Friday on Chase Field sidelines as Spartans open new season!

LANGLEY — Graham Roxburgh and Rob Giesbrecht first met on the practice pitch at Trinity Western University more than a quarter-century ago.And ever since crossing paths in their early 20’s, they’ve not only worked together, they’ve just spent the past decade scheming against each other.Along their parallel journeys, the pair formed a bond as soccer […]

Olivia Willett (centre, 283) is both a returning senior and foundational leader on the NCAA's No. 11-ranked Div. 2 women's cross-country team, one set to return to the trails Friday in San Francisco. (Photo provided courtesy SFU athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Cross Country

Simon Fraser cross-country 2021 returns Friday to its Happy Trails! Says coach Townsend: “Once you get back on the course, everything’s the same… you compete”

BURNABY — Happy Trails.It’s a song much too dated to register anything resembling a pulse from today’s generation of student-athletes.Yet as cross-country runners at every rank of the NCAA, including those competing at the Div. 2 level at Simon Fraser University, prepare for the mass resumption of their competitive racing schedules this weekend, they might […]

Simon Fraser defensive end Tank Brewster's early sack of Idaho quarterback EJ Jordan produced a fumble that was recovered by SFU linebacker Griffin Barrett. (Photo property of Idaho Vandals' athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Simon Fraser football season opener: Head coach Mike Rigell candid after young team suffers resounding loss to Div. 1 Idaho Vandals!

Coming off a cancelled season and not having played a game for 658 days, the Simon Fraser football coaching staff knew that Saturday’s maiden test of its 2021 season was going to be like the first day of class in the school of hard knocks.Matched against the toughest foe it will face all season, Div. […]

The 2017 G.W. Graham Grizzlies parlayed solid team defence into a long AA Subway Bowl run. Now, after nine years at that tier, the Grizz played their first game as a AAA team Friday and came away with a shutout win over the Robert Bateman Timberwolves. (File photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Football

Varsity Letters’ 09.03.21: B.C. High School Football Report-Friday Night Lights edition… GW Graham defensive front dominates in win over Bateman’s T-Wolves

Welcome to the first 2021 Friday Night Lights edition of the Varsity Letters’ B.C. High School Football Report.Week 0 brings just one game.ROBERT BATEMAN 0 at G.W. GRAHAM 35CHILLIWACK — The host G.W. Graham Grizzlies, set for new beginnings this season in the AAA ranks, opened the 2021 campaign at Exhibition Stadium with the kind […]

Simon Fraser guard Christian 'Boots' Butenschoen (66) and the rest of the young Simon Fraser offensive line gets a stern test Saturday when it opens the season on the road against the NCAA Div. 1 FCS Idaho Vandals. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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After a lost 2020 season, Saturday’s kick-off at Idaho can’t come soon enough for ‘Boots’ Butenschoen and Simon Fraser’s young offensive line!

BURNABY — Christian Butenschoen is not buying all of this talk of youth being served along the trenches of perhaps the youngest offensive line in all of NCAA D2 football.“Even though we’re young, the chemistry there is looking good right now,” the team’s 6-foot-3, 290 pound sophomore left guard out of Bellingham High explained earlier […]

With the O'Hagan Field scoreboard behind him telling the story, Vancouver College running back Tommy Carvalho finds the end zone against North Vancouver's Carson Graham Eagles for the first scoring play of not only a new season of B.C. high school football, but the first since the pandemic halted play across our province in all sports in March of 2020. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Football

Varsity Letters’ 09.02.21 B.C. High School Football Report ‘Welcome Back’ edition: No. 1 Fighting Irish top Carson in return-to-play game!

VANCOUVER — In the long history of B.C. high school sports, you won’t find an institution which honours its history, heritage and longevity with more aplomb than Vancouver College.With all of that in mind, as provincial inter-school competition took its first official steps since the beginning of the Covid lockdown in March of 2020 with […]