Varsity Blues faced adversity before they ever played a game
The University of Toronto Varsity Blues faced some unusual adversity to start the U Sports season.
Long before they reached Saskatoon and the 2024 U Sports national women's hockey championship tournament, the Varsity Blues experienced what was an impromptu team-building exercise early one September morning at 2 a.m.
As head coach Vicky Sunohara tells it, the team was on its way to New Jersey for an exhibition game when the Blues' team bus got stuck behind an accident. That caused a rather lengthy delay. Eventually, the bus driver ran out of hours to legally drive.
With their bus sitting in a parking lot, the Blues brought out a ball — not pucks — and patiently killed some time.
“Our season journey started in a parking lot outside of New Jersey, playing spike ball at two in the morning,” recalled Sunohara, whose Ontario University Athletics conference runner-up will face the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds in U Sports national championship quarterfinal action Friday night in Saskatoon.
Sunohara, a former threetime Olympic medallist for Canada, tells the story.
“We were travelling to play Princeton in New Jersey. We were behind an accident on the highway leaving Toronto, so it put us behind schedule,” Sunohara related.
“Our bus driver run out of hours so he pulled off the highway in front of this closed, dark gas station just outside (New Jersey) and we waited probably an hour and 40 minutes there for a replacement bus driver. It ended up being a super-late, late night. You can't make those things up. We talk about it. People were miserable at the time, but it was just a small bump in the road.
“We laugh about it now, but it was challenging.”
The newest challenge is advancing to Saturday's medal round with a win Friday.
The Blues finished with a 17-8-2-1 record in the regular season and a 4-3 record in the playoffs, falling to the Waterloo Warriors in the OUA final.
The winner between Toronto and UNB will face the winner of the quarterfinal between the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds and Montreal Carabins.
For the Blues, bus travel is limited this time around. They are staying in downtown Saskatoon and taking van shuttles to and from the rink.