VANCOUVER, B.C. – It's the best night of the year for UBC volleyball fans.
Pride Night is back at War Memorial Gym on Friday, when the Thunderbirds welcome the Winnipeg Wesmen for the first game of a back-to-back series. The U SPORTS No.3-ranked T-Birds women play after the schools' men's teams go head-to-head, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. (PT) on Friday and 5:45 p.m. (PT) on Saturday.
UBC volleyball's
Pride Night has become a meaningful Thunderbirds tradition, where the teams use their annual festival game to fundraise and raise awareness around issues facing LGBTQ+ people while creating an environment that's not just inclusive but celebratory of members of that community, all to help drive and reinforce change in the historically heteronormative sport environment.
"I'm really proud of our athletes and our program, how we have built Pride over a number of years," said UBC head coach
Doug Reimer. "Pride Night is an outward celebration, but internally too we use this as an opportunity to educate ourselves and bring in speakers who can address the adversity that LGBTQ+ people face in sport."
Friday's event will feature drag performances throughout the evening from local performers Batty Banks and Acacia Gray. There will also be activations in the lobby and giveaways throughout the games.
"It's a joyful night, but also a chance to do some real good," noted Reimer. "Over the past number of years we've looked at community groups that we can lend visibility to and raise donations for. This year we are partnering with Qmunity."
Qmunity is a non-profit with the mission of improving queer, trans, and Two-Spirit lives through services, connection, and leadership. Find out more about Qmunity
HERE.
"We've had an active player committee working on this throughout the semester. There's a lot of player engagement that I'd like to recognize," added Reimer.
"I'm so impressed and proud of them for putting so much time into thoughtfully executing and promoting this event, especially as student-athletes who are already under so much stress, particularly near the end of the term here."
For more information on Pride Night and to purchase your tickets,
CLICK HERE.
On the court, the T-Birds women now lead Canada West in points per set while posting the fewest receiving errors in the conference.
That's particularly impressive because the 'Birds have just completed a hellacious stretch of their schedule where they played six straight games against nationally-ranked opponents, five of those on the road, and came away with four victories.
Reimer credits his team's depth with how they came through the difficult run of games, getting strong results despite battling injury and illness.
"Big credit to
Daphne Demiryol at the libero position and
Mackenzie Campbell at the setter position, they have stepped up recently to help fill some gaps around injury and illness with our regular starters," praised Reimer. "We have excellent starters, but also good depth at those two positions, and it's shown when it needs to."
The last two games were against archival Trinity Western, where the T-Birds swept the home-and-home series to hand the Spartans their first losses of the year and match them in the conference standings while leapfrogging them in the national rankings. The series finale, at War Gym, went late into the night last Friday, concluding five grueling sets at nearly 11:30 p.m. after the schools' men's teams also played a five-set marathon.
"That one match, both given the time, how long that night was, and how long the match was, was probably more draining than many two-match weekends," mused Reimer. "There's more emotion in that scenario too. That night really stretched us. We have to make sure that we're doing a good job recovering and resetting, going into this final weekend before the break, at the end of a long term, with lots of injuries and academic stress."
The final weekend will see an intriguing Winnipeg Wesmen team come to War Gym. The Wesmen sit at just 2-6 on season, but one of their wins was a decisive sweep of a solid Calgary team last weekend, while they took the U SPORTS No.4-ranked Spartans to five sets earlier in the year.
"Winnipeg has a good, balanced attack," analyzed Reimer. "They've also always been very competitive and scrappy defensively. When they're in system and rolling offensively, they have a lot of weapons in all positions."
Find tickets to this weekend's games
HERE. If you can't attend in person, stream all of the action, live or on demand, on
CANADA WEST TV, powered by BioSteel.
