The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack will open the 2019-20 Canada West men’s and women’s volleyball season on the road. The Pack will visit to the easternmost destination in the league to begin the season as they pay a visit to Brandon, Manitoba.
Thompson Rivers will begin its season against the Bobcats Friday and Saturday October 18-19th at the Healthy Living Centre.
The WolfPack women have 24 matches in their schedule again this year with the University of Regina having a team in their league. The Thompson Rivers men’s team have 22 league matches.
Speaking of Regina, they will be in Kamloops and the Tournament Capital Centre on Friday November 15th and Saturday November 16th for noon PST matches against the WolfPack. The Friday match will be the WolfPack’s annual “school day” where elementary and secondary schools will be encouraged to come to the TCC to watch the action.
Thompson Rivers has their home opener Friday, October 25th at the Tournament Capital Centre when the University of Calgary Dinos will make an appearance.
Something new this year will see the TRU men playing the first match on Friday’s (5 PM start time) with the women taking to the floor at 7 PM. The teams will switch for Saturday.
Says WolfPack women’s head coach Chad Grimm about the make up of the schedule, “ Having a balanced schedule provides us the chance to see every team in our league and everyone will have to play each other throughout the course of the year so in that sense the schedule is somewhat irrelevant. This year we will have one extra set of games on the road as we have hosted Brandon the past two seasons and will open up with them this year on the road. If we look at the standings from last year we will have a tough first half with many of the top teams from last season being a part of our first half schedule. That being said, everyone in Canada West is tough and provides a challenge so it should be another tight race in our league this year.”
Schools coming into Kamloops this year besides Calgary are: Alberta on November 8-9th. This will be the first appearance for the Pandas and Golden Bears since they took on Thompson Rivers in the playoffs. The Pandas needed a full three matches to beat TRU in their quarterfinals. The WolfPack upset the Golden Bears in two straight in their Canada West quarterfinal.
The Manitoba Bisons (January 10-11), UBCO Heat ( January 24-25) and the Trinity Western University Spartans (February 14-15) are the other teams paying a visit to TRU this regular season.
