Fans of the UNBC Timberwolves hoping to watch some university basketball action this weekend at the Northern Sport Centre might have a decision to make.
To get to the T-wolves' games tonight and Saturday against the UBC Thunderbirds they will likely have to cross picket lines.
The UNBC Faculty Association strike continued into its ninth day Friday and professors, lab instructors, librarians remained off the job. Picket lines have been set up at the main entrance off University Way, which is adjacent to the home gym of the T-wolves at the NSC.
UNBC looked into moving the games to Duchess Park Secondary School but had reassurances from the Thunderbirds and the officials for tonight's games that they were prepared to cross the picket lines.
"They got approval from their associations to cross the line and that is why we stayed," said Loralyn Murdoch, UNBC's athletics and recreation director.
Murdoch explained that part of UNBC's commitment as a Canada West member is to provide pay-per-view broadcasts of the games and that would be jeopardized if they had to play at Duchess Park, which lacks the hard-wired connections for the broadcast crew.
"The problems we run into about changing venues is our mandatory compliance component to Canada West, like live streaming and live stats, and we have to have the technical capabilities to do those sorts of things," said Murdoch. "There are fines for everything from not having an announcer, not having live stats, not having a play-by-play guy, the list is long. They have a high standard because people are paying to watch on pay-per-view."
The UNBC (3-1) are off to one of their best starts in eight seasons playing in the Canada West Conference. The T-wolves gained a split with the Victoria Vikes two weeks ago in their home opening weekend and swept the Trinity Western Spartans in a two-game set last weekend in Langley. They're taking on a UBC team that lost two close games at home last weekend to the Calgary Dinos.
“The feeling in the room is great right now," said T-wolves forward Anthony Hokanson, in a team release. "Everyone is playing with a lot of confidence, and we want to keep that same energy rolling moving forward.
“We’re expecting very hard-fought games from UBC. They’re always one of the premier teams in our conference so we really need to lock into our systems to compete how we want to against them.”
The UNBC women have been dealing with injuries and won just one of four games the past two weeks, coming off a split with the Spartans a week ago in Langley. The T-wolves took UVic to overtime in their season-opening game at NSC and will need a similar effort to defeat the Thunderbirds (2-2), coming off back-to-back losses to Calgary last week.
“UBC is always a very competitive team and we’ve played them a lot in the past few years," said UNBC forward Madison Landry. "I think we can easily recognize their key players and know their tendencies. They’re a tall team, so we’re really going to have to block out. We also need to prioritize rebounding, so that we do not give them easy secondary chances."
The T-wolves travel to Kamloops next weekend to play Thompson Rivers University, then has a bye heading into the Christmas break.
“I think that we are still learning to work together and play as a team," said Landry. "That said, we have worked so hard over preseason and we are a strong team, so I don’t have any doubts that we can pick up some momentum and upset some big schools.
“Our rookies are key to our success this year. Everyone is working so hard, and it’s so important and satisfying to see everyone improving every day in practice.”
The women's game starts tonight at 6 a.m., followed by the men's game at 8 p.m. Picketing has gone on daily since the start of the strike a week ago Thursday and picketers disburse by 7:30 p.m., which means no strikers will be in front of the campus for the men's game tonight.
Start times Saturday are 5 p.m. for the women, 7 p.m. for the men.
