VANCOUVER – Thursday evening at Thunderbird Stadium will officially mark the start of a new Canada West Men's Soccer season, one the UBC Thunderbirds have been anxiously anticipating for months.
Opening the 2026 campaign against one of their most formidable divisional opponents in the Fraser Valley Cascades, the veteran T-Birds receive perhaps their strongest test of the season right off the hop, kickstarting a busy first two weeks of conference play.
"I think we're ready to go," said UBC head coach,
Mike Mosher, as his squad begins its conference season after a healthy turn of exhibition matches. "It'll be a difficult game, it always is against Fraser Valley. They get up to play us big time and we need to be ready to match that commitment level and energy right away. It's perfect – bring it on. In the early part of the season, everybody's fresh, everybody's hungry, everybody's got aspirations, so you often see everybody's best."
UBC boasts perhaps the most veteran team in the conference, the vast majority of last year's roster back for another go and with some extra fire in the belly. Despite setting new conference records with 15 wins while going undefeated in 2025, the team fell just short, losing the Canada West Final to Mount Royal followed by a U SPORTS National Championship quarter-final defeat to the Montreal Carabins.
"If we don't lift a trophy this year, it's a disappointment," said Mosher who earned his second career U SPORTS Coach of the Year award last season. "We all have a little bit of a bitter taste from last year where we won 15 games with a draw and yet we didn't lift a trophy. We lost two games in a row at the worst time of the year to do it. There are factors within that, but we also learned from that as players, as coaches. Winning championships is always the goal and the standard of this program and that's where we want to be at the end of the season."
Leading UBC's returning veterans is fifth year defender
Eric Lajeunesse. The three-time All-Canadian is back for his final U SPORTS season having played his third summer with the CPL's Pacific FC. Each of the 'Birds' top three leading point getters from 2025 are all back in
Luke Norman,
Henri Godbout and
Max Comsia as are midfielders
Brennen Fuerst and
Nicolas Nadeau.
All three goalkeepers are also returning in
Jack Garner,
Roko Vukic and
Hayden Franks.
Add in
this year's talented recruit class and there's an embarrassment of riches when it comes to depth for the blue and gold.
"It is a nice luxury to have to be returning a critical mass of a group that has had a lot of success over the last few years. Obviously you got to highlight somebody like Eric who's such a strong player, he's probably the pinnacle of that going into his fifth year. He's our leader and just such a character guy and obviously a top, top player. We've got a busy stint to start the season, so as we've done historically over the last many years having had success, part of that success is rotating the group and giving guys opportunities and keeping guys hungry and keeping guys fresh."
While the T-Birds have last year's disappointing end in the back of their minds, similarly the Cascades won't have forgotten how UBC ended each of their last two seasons in the conference semifinals.
Fraser Valley was the only squad to take points off the 'Birds throughout 2025 conference play, a 0-0 draw in Abbotsford.
Last year's U SPORTS Player of the Year, Mateo Brazinha, is back for his fourth year with UFV, leading the Cascades into battle at Thunderbird Stadium for the only time this regular season.
Kickoff for the 2026 Canada West campaign on Thursday, August 27 is set for 6:00 p.m.
Tickets are available online and the game will also be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
