Life at the next level will officially begin on Nov. 2.
The Canada West Universities Athletic Association released its 2012-13 basketball schedule on Monday. The document, of course, includes the home and away games of the UNBC Northern Timberwolves, who are new Canada West members after 13 seasons of play in the provincial college league.
"We knew that no matter what the schedule looked like, it was going to be pretty challenging," said UNBC men's head coach Todd Jordan. "But it's just exciting to be going into Canada West and being able to see some of these teams, and especially having some of them come into our place."
The Timberwolves will start their inaugural Canada West year Nov. 2 on the road against the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack of Kamloops. The T-wolves will also face the WolfPack the next night. Their first home games will be Nov. 9-10 against the Trinity Western University Spartans of Langley. This past season, the Spartan men finished fourth in the Pacific Division at 10-8 and the women were fourth at 8-10.
UNBC home games will be played on campus at the Northern Sport Centre. Highlights of the home schedule include games against the University of Alberta (Nov. 29), the University of Saskatchewan (Dec. 1) and the University of British Columbia (Feb. 8-9). For fans, those will be great nights to be in the NSC seats.
"Prince George hasn't had a huge opportunity to see the big universities play basketball here over the years," said Loralyn Murdoch, head coach of the UNBC women. "We've had the odd university come in but this will be a chance for the community to see what the best-of-the-best are doing and how we compare and where we see ourselves in the future."
UNBC's regular season will end with Feb. 15-16 home games against Calgary's Mount Royal University, which is also a new addition to Canada West.
The Timberwolves will play 12 home games and 10 away games. The top four teams in each of the eight-team divisions -- Pacific and Prairie -- will advance to playoffs, which will start with quarterfinals on Feb. 22.
The full schedule can be found on the Canada West website, canadawest.org.
n The UNBC men and women will play pre-season games Oct. 11-13 at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. The following weekend, the men will head to the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford for more tune-up contests.
The pre-season schedule of the UNBC women also includes an Oct. 5-6 visit from the Grande Prairie Regional College Wolves and an Oct. 18-20 trip to Calgary's Mount Royal University.
