Trinity Western's David Mutabazi (right) dribbled past Ajay Mitchell of Santa Barbara on Tuesday at the Langley Events Centre as the Canada West's Spartans played host to the visiting, NCAA Div. 1 Gauchos. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters. com. All Rights Reserved)
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A SUNDAY READ: Tsumura on the joys of summertime basketball, NCAA Div. 1 foreign tours, and the road-less-travelled path of Trinity Western’s electric David Mutabazi!

LANGLEY — The best part of ageing into an ‘old’ basketball writer?For me, it’s that rare but reassured feeling I get, when against any reasonable expectation, a player straps the fortunes of his team on his back, and in this case almost carries them to an improbable upset.That is the place I found myself this […]

Your author, presenting with pride, the MVP trophy at the 2015 Tsumura Basketball Invitational, to McMath Wildcats' Jessica Jones. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2015 All Rights Reserved)
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A message from Howard: After 40 years, I’ll bring a new writing direction to Varsity Letters for the 2022-23 high school and university sports season!

NORTH DELTA –  Heartfelt greetings to all of you, my loyal, longtime readers.It’s been five months since I decided to take a break from my writing life.As was the goal from the very start, my decision to take sabbatical after 40 years of daily practice — first from my typewriter, and of course later, in […]

Trinity Western Spartans' point guard Mason Bourcier during his team's 93-84 exhibition win over the Calgary Dinos on Oct. 7 at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2022. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Men's Basketball

Mason Bourcier: With three triple-doubles over his past six games, Trinity Western’s well-travelled guard puts down his hoops roots at Langley Events Centre!

LANGLEY — Ask Mason Bourcier about the good times he is starting to have again on the basketball court, and he seems to first take a backwards glance into his own figurative rearview mirror before speaking.“I used to be that kid, who if you showed him a brick wall, he’d run right through it,” Trinity […]

The Langley Christian Lightning seem ready to make a third run at the thus-far elusive B.C. senior girls Double A basketball championship title this March at the Langley Events Centre. It's a quest being led by the team's talented trio of seniors (left to right) Taelor Coxford, Sydney Bradshaw and Lainey Shelvey. (Photo graphic by Gabriel Lynn, photos by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2022. All Rights Reserved)
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The ‘Strikes Thrice’ magic of the Langley Christian Lightning! In a tier-free girls high school basketball world, might Double-A powers be BC’s No. 1 overall team?

LANGLEY — Imagine a B.C. girls high school basketball world without any tiers of classification.Instead, replace it with a soup pot of sorts in which every team in the province is thrown together to form a chowder-like broth.Bring to a boil.Cover.Simmer.Let the cream rise to the top.And when you lift that cover, who might you […]

Trinity Western first-year guard Shemaiah Abatayo, continually looking to take her game to another level, gets the toughest test of her season Thursday. Abatayo's 8-0 Spartans entertain the 7-1 Fraser Valley Cascades at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Mark Janzen property of Trinity Western athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

B.C. women’s hoops game of the year! It’s 8-0 Trinity Western against 7-1 Fraser Valley in what’s shaping up as a classic clash Thursday night at the LEC!

LANGLEY — They are historic geographic rivals dating back to their days on the provincial college circuit when the British Columbia Collegiate Athletic Association was perhaps the longest league moniker in all of North American post-secondary sports.And they’ve spent a good long time building up their respective programs since moving up to U SPORTS.Yet on […]

Trinity Western Spartan head coach Ben Josephson guided his team in seven matches against national team competition, and seven more against NCAA Div. 1 foes, all as part of a huge load of competition coming out of the cancelled 2020 COVID season. On Friday and Saturday, the Spartans play host to UBC at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Mark Janzen property of Trinity Western athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Trinity Western men’s volleyball 2021-22: After cancelled season, battle-tested Spartans know that only their best will do against LEC-visiting rival UBC Thunderbirds!

LANGLEY — First, just days into the COVID lockdown back in March of 2020, they were denied the chance to defend their U SPORTS men’s national volleyball championship status.Then, of course, they were a part of a mass cancellation which wiped out their entire 2021 season.With all of that in mind, it pretty to easy […]

Trinity Western senior defender Liz Hicks helped lift her Spartans to the U SPORTS national final but was unable to secure an elusive national title in her final university game Sunday in Sydney, NS. (Photo by Mark Janzen property of Trinity Western athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Soccer

Spartans’ run to a sixth U SPORTS women’s soccer title scuttled as Trinity Western falls to MacEwan Griffins in national title game’s penalty-kick portion!

In its 17 prior contests this season, comprising Canada West league matches and playoffs, as well as U SPORTS national championship ones, the Trinity Western Spartans women’s soccer team’s 16-0-1 record showed both an aptitude and an ability to succeed at whatever kind of adversity had been placed in front of them, from injuries to […]

The Trinity Western Spartans headed into their Canada West bye week with a perfect 4-0 conference record. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

Off to a perfect 4-0 start, Trinity Western Spartans women’s hoops reaps rewards of studious work during 2020’s cancelled campaign!

LANGLEY — They are the kinds of numbers which, through the real-life rigours of a cancelled COVID campaign, seem even more distant and faded than they really are.Yet ask Trinity Western women’s head basketball coach Cheryl Jean-Paul about the early signposts she has spotted with her Spartans’ club in the formative stages of the Canada […]

Trinity Western Spartans' fifth-year standout defender Liz Hicks during a Tuesday evening training session at Cape Breton University in Sydney, NS, site of the 2021 U SPORTS Women's Soccer Championships. (Photo by Mark Janzen property of Trinity Western athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Soccer

Have goal, will travel: Trinity Western’s 26-hour marathon trip to U SPORTS soccer nationals in Nova Scotia mirrors Spartans’ own game-day resiliency along their journey!

Coming off 2020’s cancelled season and into a new one in which the norm has been to expect the unexpected, its perhaps no surprise to learn that despite a cross-country flight filled with folly, that the Canada West women’s soccer champions from Trinity Western University have arrived in Nova Scotia, stirringly unshaken, to battle for […]

UBC guard Grant Audu has paid his dues and honed his game and enters the 2021-22 season as a true team leader. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Men's Basketball

UBC men’s hoops 2021-22: A new season tips off Thursday with game-ready additions as defending Canada West champ ‘Birds ready for small-ball or tall-ball!

VANCOUVER — They are not exactly a team shrouded in mystery, yet on the night of the final sleep before opening the 2021-22 Canada West men’s basketball season, it’s impossible to have a genuine handle on just what kind of team the UBC Thunderbirds are going to be.And you can take that right down to […]