Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

TRU WOLFPACK

Thompson Rivers University set to host 2022 USPORTs Men’s National Soccer Championships in November

Mar 15, 2022 | 3:59 PM

KAMLOOPS — In just eight months, Hillside Stadium will be the backdrop for the top collegiate soccer players in the country, as Thompson Rivers University will host the USPORTs Men’s Soccer National championships.

Seven teams from across Canada will join the WolfPack at the tournament, which is set to take place November 10 to 13 at Hillside Stadium. Tuesday (Mar. 15), it was announced RBC and Kamloops Kia have come on board as major sponsors of the event.

Curtis Atkinson, Director of Athletics and Recreation for the WolfPack, hopes the community rallies around this event.

“In our conversations with RBC partway through COVID, it really changed our perspective on what this event could mean for our community,” Atkinson told those gathered at Tuesday’s media event. “We knew we’d be coming off a really tough period for a lot of people, including in sport. We saw this as an event that could really rally a community, that people could get behind — bigger than soccer, bigger than what happens between the lines out there.”

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TRU last hosted the USPORTs Men’s Soccer Nationals back in 2017, where the WolfPack captured a bronze medal by defeating their perennial rival UBC on penalty kicks. Ryan Glanville a key member of that team remembers when Coach John Antulov told him the WolfPack was hosting that event.

“When he told me we were hosting the 2017 National tournament, all of a sudden there was a smile on my face because I know what this means to the program, what it means to the community and as a player, this is what you aspire to,” Glanville says. “You aspire to compete… to win these national events. We knew we could do it on our home field, in front of our home fans. We knew we had the chance to do something very special with the group we had.”

Ticket packages for the 2022 USPORTs Men’s Soccer Nationals are now available at www.GoWolfPack.ca.