86th Hardy Cup Preview

Article by Brian Swane, special to CW

Familiar foes will finally add another championship chapter to their rivalry when the UBC Thunderbirds host the Alberta Golden Bears in the 86th Hardy Cup, Saturday (Nov. 11) at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver. 

Kickoff is scheduled for 2 p.m. PT and all the game will stream live on Canada West TV and will be available to SaskTel subscribers on SaskTel maxTV channels 49/349.

While this will be the third time in 50 days that the Bears and 'Birds do battle, Alberta and UBC have not met for the championship trophy since Nov. 6, 1987, when the T-Birds beat the Golden Bears 26-8 at Thunderbird Stadium in the 51st edition of the Hardy Cup.

"This is very good for our conference to have Alberta and UBC, two teams that maybe weren't at the top of everyone's minds at the start of year, show that they can still succeed," T-Birds head coach Blake Nill said.

Alberta and UBC finished at the top of the 2023 Canada West standings with identical 6-2 records, but the T-Birds won both their regular season games against the Bears, defeating Alberta 54-37 at Thunderbird Stadium on Sept. 22, and 23-10 in Edmonton just two weeks ago.

"They're a really good team; they've given us more than we can handle the first two times we played them," said Chris Morris, head coach of the Golden Bears. "I think we can play better, so that's going to be our objective: just worry about ourselves and see if we can put our best product out there."

In Hardy Cup semi-final action last Saturday (Nov. 4), UBC rallied from a 14-point deficit to beat the Manitoba Bisons 29-21 at Thunderbird Stadium. Then under the lights at Foote Field, Alberta won its first postseason game since 2010, eliminating the two-time defending champion Saskatchewan Huskies by a score of 40-17.

"We've been knocking on the door for a while, and I'm very happy that we got to win that game and get that monkey off our backs," Morris said. "Now we just really want to see how far we can go together."

The 16-time champion Golden Bears can end a 42-year Hardy Trophy drought with their first championship triumph since beating UBC 11-8 in the 45th Hardy Cup on Nov. 13, 1981. UBC is hosting the Hardy Cup for the first time in 26 years, looking to win the 16th championship in school history but first since 2015. 

"This team here is a talented group, they've won some good games this year, but a lot like the (Golden Bears), there's not a lot of success with the current tenure of athletes," said Nill. "It's not like we've been to the national semi-finals and we've had Vanier Cup experience, so we're trying to raise our expectations."

Saturday's winner will host the Atlantic University Sport champion in the Mitchell Bowl on Nov. 18. At stake will be a spot in the 58th Vanier Cup, Nov. 25 in Kingston, Ont.

PLAYERS TO WATCH:

Matthew Peterson (Alberta, fourth year, running back) – The 2023 Canada West nominee for the Hec Creighton Trophy led the conference with 1,128 rushing yards this season. He ran for a career-high 210 yards at UBC on Sept. 22, and picked up 101 yards on the ground against the T-Birds two weeks ago.

Garrett Rooker (UBC, third year, quarterback) – The Texas native was named a Canada West all-star after ranking first in Canada West with an incredible 179.6 pass efficiency rating. He completed 16 of 21 passes for 245 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions In UBC's semi-final victory over Manitoba.