This week, the Varsity Letters podcasts welcomes UBC's Wilson Wong and ex-UVic basketball PxP voice Guy MacPherson.
Feature Podcast

09.30.19: Varsity Letters-The Podcast gets historical with UBC’s Wilson Wong, ex-UVic Vikes radio man Guy MacPherson

Varsity Letters — The Podcast is back on the air. Looking back isn’t our usual habit, but with the pandemic shutting down what would normally be a frenetic fall season of high school and university sports, we’re going to be heavy on history this week. UBC’s manager of Sports Information Wilson Wong joins us off […]

Over a UBC soccer career in which he has taken a redshirt season and a two-year sabbatical, Surrey's Sean Einarsson is looking to win a national title for the first time since 2013. The 'Birds journey continues this week with the Legend's Cup series against Victoria. (Photo by Ben Nelms property of UBC athletics 2019. All rights reserved)
Feature University Men's Soccer

Book-ends forged in gold? For UBC midfielder Sean Einarsson, a return to Thunderbird nation could well include a fairy-tale finish!

VANCOUVER —  When Sean Einarsson decided to return to the home of Canada’s most decorated men’s university soccer program two seasons ago, it was with the hope that he could fashion a finish to his career which would be every bit as satisfying as its storybook start.It was back in 2013 when the redshirt freshman […]

Fraser Valley Cascades' rookie Bryana Buttar (centre) has played like a veteran over the first six matches of the 2019 Canada West season. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Soccer University Women's Soccer

Cascades are better with Bryana Buttar in the batter! Rookie a rare ingredient as UFV hunkers for huge weekend homestand vs. UBC, UVic

ABBOTSFORD — With the same clockwork precision she has shown at every key stage of her soccer career, Bryana Buttar has once again arrived ahead of her time.“I definitely feel that my whole youth career has set me up for this,” the Fraser Valley Cascades’ dynamic midfielder remarked Wednesday of the opportunity she has seized […]

Trinity Western's fourth-year defender Kristen Sakaki (left) had her love affair with the beautiful game reaffirmed during the Spartans' 12-day training camp in England last month. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of Trinity Western athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Soccer

TWU women’s soccer: On eve of 2019 season opener, training camp in England reminds Spartans of their “love and joy” for the beautiful game

LANGLEY — It wasn’t a trip planned specifically as a soccer pilgrimage.Training camps are serious business, and when you’ve played in five of the last seven U Sports national title games like the women’s team from Langley’s Trinity Western University have, it’s pretty clear that no part of the process can be ignored.Yet allowing that […]

Oak Bay's Diego Maffia (6) pulls on Bays' colours for the final time Saturday in the 43rd annual B.C. boys high school all-star game. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

Diego Maffia: Ahead of his Saturday all-star finale, Oak Bay’s superstar guard chats about finding a fit with his hometown Victoria Vikes

He may not be joining the most prolific offence in U Sports’ basketball, yet high-scoring Diego Maffia likes the schematics of his hometown Victoria Vikes and the ways in which his greatest skills can potentially find their fit at the university level.

Already seven seasons and three CCAA Final Fours into his collegiate coaching career, Vancouver Island head coach Matt Kuzminski has his Mariners in the running for another national title this week at the LEC. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
The last goal of Poonam Sandhu's UBC playing career won her team the 2014 U Sports national title. Her first shot as the program's head coach comes Saturday at home to Victoria. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics)
Feature High School Field Hockey University Field Hockey

Poonam Sandhu: For UBC’s decorated field hockey vet and new head coach, nothing trumps Thunderbird tradition

VANCOUVER — Poonam Sandhu fashioned one of the most steeped national championship resumes in UBC sports history during her playing career in the midfield of the Thunderbirds’ women’s field hockey team.

Trinity Western senior keeper Rachel Sydor enters her fifth-and-final Canada West season by ascending to a starter's role as the Spartans open Canada West play Friday at home to the Victoria Vikes. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of TWU athletics)
Feature University Women's Soccer

Rachel Sydor: Four years a Spartan understudy, Trinity Western keeper rises to starting role on nation’s No. 4-ranked team

LANGLEY — Win five national titles over a span of 10 years, like the Trinity Western Spartans’ women’s soccer program did from 2004-13, and you’re not only able to recruit great players into the team, you’re able to create some of the most competitive positional battles imaginable.

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.

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 […]