VANCOUVER – It's been more than nine months since the UBC Thunderbirds received their 2023 U SPORTS bronze medals in Nova Scotia, but the 2024 Canada West men's soccer season is finally upon us. The 13-time national champion T-Birds open up the new campaign this Friday, August 23 when they host the UBC Okanagan Heat for the first of two weekend matches as the Thompson Rivers WolfPack pay a visit to Thunderbird Stadium on Saturday.
As is often the case to start a new season, the T-Birds will look quite different to the home crowd faithful when they take the pitch, having graduated a number of key starters from last year's squad. That list includes 2023 U SPORTS Player of the Year,
Sebastian Dzikowski, as well as standout midfielder
Logan Chung. But year after year the T-Birds prove to be one of the deepest teams in the country, and no doubt there are many able to step up and fill those gaps.
"We've come a ways in a couple weeks here," said UBC Head Coach,
Mike Mosher, following a short but effective August training camp. "We're not the finished product right now and we don't need to be. You want to be prepared to grow and get better with each and every week of the season and I'm confident that we'll be able to do so."
Facing a pair of Pacific division rivals to begin the new season, the 'Birds know they'll have their hands full against both the Heat and WolfPack.
"UBCO is always well organized, they can be difficult to break down and the same goes for TRU," said Mosher who enters his 29
th season at the T-Birds' helm. "(TRU) have a lot of new faces over the last couple years but (head coach John Antulov) has done a really good job in recruiting over the years and they're also a difficult opponent. I think we play in the best division in the country in the Pacific. It's a division whereby we've been fortunate to be one of the top teams for many years, but any team in our division can beat you on any day, and that has happened. We've always got a target on our back and we see teams' best games, and that's a good thing. It helps us to be ready, that helps us to be prepared for playoffs and hopefully nationals after that."
Last season saw UBC's run of five consecutive Canada West championships come to a halt with a 1-0 loss to Mount Royal in the conference final. The 'Birds have their eyes firmly set on not only starting a new championship streak by capturing a record 23
rd Canada West banner this fall, but also their first national title in 11 years.
Despite losing several pieces to graduation, the T-Birds remain a veteran laden group who are battle tested and hungry to secure the ultimate prize. Led by returning captain
Noah Hrdlicka, the team has a solid leadership core – an integral piece to the solving the championship puzzle.
"I think leadership and culture within university programs is so important and valuable and that is driven by the leaders in your team. It's really nice to have Noah back in the fold. You can already see after a couple weeks of training
Eric Lajeunesse really emerging and growing from his experiences after another summer with Pacific FC and playing a lot of minutes there. And we have some other really good supporting guys like
Markus Kaiser who's been terrific. A guy like
Brennen Fuerst has been a captain on a very good Whitecaps Academy team a while back and now with a year under his belt he can start to take on more.
Chris Lee's been around for a long time. To have success you need to have good leadership. You talk about your goals, you want to win championships, but it starts with week one."
Kickoff for the 2024 season against the Heat is set for 7:00 p.m. Friday at Thunderbird Stadium. The WolfPack make their lone visit to Vancouver on Saturday for a rematch of the 2022 U SPORTS gold medal game.
Tickets for each are available now and both will be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
