TORONTO – It's déjà vu all over again as the UBC Thunderbirds open up play at the 2025 U SPORTS National Championship with a quarter-final battle against the Université de Montréal Carabins Thursday, November 6 at the University of Toronto's Varsity Stadium.
A rematch of last year's championship final which saw the T-Birds earn their first banner in 11 years with a late stoppage time game winner from
Joven Mann, Thursday's matchup will mark the fourth straight year the two perennial powerhouses will have met on the biggest stage.
"Two very successful programs. Certainly I have huge respect for Pat Raimondo as a coach and what he's done with that program and his group, we've seen it first hand over the last several years," said UBC head coach,
Mike Mosher, now at his tenth straight national tournament. "We've had some real good battles and we get them game one. But hey, you're at a national tournament and there are no easy games, you got to win three games and we go get after it on Thursday."
The Carabins advanced to the 2025 tournament with a 2-0 victory over Laval in the RSEQ final last weekend, entering nationals with the number two seed.
UBC lost their only game of the campaign in last Saturday's Canada West Final, 2-1 to the Mount Royal Cougars, and were given the seventh seed in what is a quarter-final battle between two sides that lost a combined three games all season.
"We got our hands full with a very good opponent as we well know," said Mosher who sees many similarities with his own side in the Carabins. "There are probably more similarities than differences within the two teams which could, and should, and hopefully make for an entertaining game come Thursday that we hope to come out on the right end of."
As disappointing as the Canada West Final was for the defending U SPORTS champions, the veteran T-Bird squad has quickly turned the page to focus on what's a far bigger prize up for grabs this week in Toronto.
"Quite simply, you just get on with it. Yeah, it was disappointing but that was Saturday and now we got to look ahead to Thursday. I said to the guys right after the loss the other day, it's not often in life you get a chance for a do-over and five days later we get a do-over for another title. And on day one of pre-season if you were to pick a conference championship vs a national championship, you'd probably take a national championship."
Last year's championship final win over the Carabins was also redemption for UBC which fell 2-0 to Montreal in the 2023 semifinals which in turn was redemption for the T-Birds' 2022 semifinal victory in Kamloops. The two sides have alternated wins in their previous five meetings at the national championship, a trend the T-Birds are looking to buck this week.
Aiming to become the first repeat champions since York won in 2014 and 2015, UBC last won back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013.
But first things first, and that's a heavyweight tilt to open up the 2025 championship at a unique environment in the heart of Toronto.
The winner of Thursday's quarter-final will play a semifinal against either York or Dalhousie on Friday.
UBC's Thursday battle with the Carabins begins at 1:30 p.m. ET/10:30 a.m. PT and will be available live on
CBC Gem,
cbcsports.ca and
CBC Sports' YouTube channel.
