This article is the second of an eight-part series. To read more about what The Ubyssey Sports Awards are, check out the first award here.
After awarding the Team of the Year honour to Women’s Rugby, the next award to be handed out is Game of the Year, recognizing the best single sporting event of the year in UBC varsity sport. In order to win, the nominated game needed to display a high level of tension and uncertainty in its result, providing excitement for the fans both in attendance and watching from home, and have high stakes, with elimination or playoff games being more impactful than regular season games.
As a refresher, each one of our beat writers from the sports team nominated one game for this category, then, after discussion amongst us, we voted for the winner. Reporters could not vote for their own nomination, and in the case of a tie, Caleb Peterson, the Sports & Recreation Editor, would cast the deciding vote. This was our voting committee:
- Luiza Teixeira: Women’s Hockey Reporter
- Maia Cesario: Women’s Soccer Reporter + Women’s Basketball Reporter
- Ian Cooper: Men’s Basketball Reporter
- Sofia Campanholo: Women’s Volleyball Reporter + Men’s Soccer Reporter
- Annaliese Gumboc: Football Reporter
- Caleb Peterson: Sports & Recreation Editor + Men’s Hockey Reporter
And here was our discussion.
Nominations:
(Caleb Peterson | Men’s Hockey): For Game of the Year, I am picking this based purely off entertainment value. And now, I will say, Men's Hockey did not play that many entertaining games this season. They were very good. They had the best regular season in team history. Most of the games they played, especially with the division they played in, where most of the teams were very bad — most of the time, they were just blowing people out. Not very exciting, not very enticing.
But for some reason, this game against MacEwan on Nov. 14 was different. MacEwan, this small school in Edmonton, they had UBC's number this year. They play very aggressive. They counter UBC's aggression, their puck possession, by trying to use that against them. It makes for some great hockey, because both teams are just firing at each other. Both teams, when they're playing their game, they're not really caring as much about defence, so it’s a back and forth battle.
It was a scoreless first period, but once this game got going, it was very much a playoff-like atmosphere. At the end of the second period, there was a massive brawl — people getting literally wrestling-flipped over somebody's shoulder and slammed into the ground — it was completely nuts.
When you get to the end of the game — and again, UBC should’ve been heavily favoured — while UBC worked their way back in it, MacEwan refused to go away. They scored with only two minutes left to tie the game. Then, UBC made this giant push at the end of the game, but were stymied by one of the best glove saves I've ever seen — potentially only second to the one UBC got against them in the playoffs — stoning UBC with less than a minute left.
And then in overtime, MacEwan comes back and scores. One of their guys who had a nasty penalty earlier in the game — where he, in kind of a dirty play, knocked somebody to the ground — comes back into the game and scores the game-winning goal. The MacEwan announcers were going nuts.
Absolutely a crazy game, one of my favorite events that I have seen at UBC. So that is my pick.
(Sofia Campanholo | Women’s Volleyball): I'm going with a sad moment because I'm going to choose the U Sports quarterfinal game against the Trinity Western Spartans. That was the first time since January 2025 that UBC lost a game by a clean sweep, 3-0. I have been covering them all this season and I have never seen that happen.
They tried their best throughout the game, but it wasn’t enough. Every set went until the last moment. UBC could have had it in the first set. They lost 33 to 31. And then, for the second set, it also went to 26. They lost. Then, by the third, they had already given up. It looked like they realized what was going on at that point, because they started the set with a four-point lead, and then somehow Trinity Western was able to pass UBC, winning the third set as well.
It was also sad because it was Lucy Borowski's last game for UBC, her last chance to get another national championship. Even though UBC won the national title in 2023 and 2024, it was still a sad moment for all of them, especially because, the week earlier, they also lost to the Spartans in the semifinals of the Canada West playoffs. I feel like that disappointment carried over. I think it was the saddest moment and game for them this season.
(Ian Cooper | Men’s Basketball): My pick will be when UBC was playing in the semifinals at Winnipeg. They were down by as many as 16, trailing from the beginning of the first quarter, all the way into the fourth. They hadn't tied the game, and they kept on coming back, but not fully getting there.
And then, in the last minute, down six, Holt Tomie hit a three with a hand in his face. He hadn't hit one all night. So now, they're down three, and then 10 seconds later, this freshman, Raj Dhadda — who was having his breakthrough game with five three pointers — he hit one to tie the game. They almost even won it in regulation, as UBC’s final shot with one second left bounced out of the rim, but they’d have to settle it in the extra frame.
They ended up winning in overtime. It was just a crazy, crazy, crazy comeback. It had real implications on their season as well, because it meant that not only did they go to the Canada West final, but also, they got to go to nationals by winning. The overtime was really entertaining as well. But yeah, that's probably the best way to sum it up. Just a crazy comeback.
(Annaliese Gumboc | Football): I have very strong feelings about this. It has to be the Oct. 24 game against Regina, the last game of the regular season. Going in, UBC had a 2–5 record. They started the season off strong, but then they lost three in a row, including their last game, which was a really depressing loss at their own senior night. The vibes were really bad. But if they won this game, they could still make the playoffs.
But it was a tall ask, going against the team with the best record in the conference, Regina. The game started off as more of the same, going down early and not closing the gap. In the fourth quarter, with three minutes left, they were down 28–13.
So, in three minutes, they would need two touchdowns, an onside kick recovery, and they would need to convert a two-point conversion. At this point, I was like, I've seen this before. UBC does not do these things — they weren’t going to come back. But with three minutes left, they go on a 75-yard drive in eight plays.
They are usually not that consistent. That, by itself, was crazy. And then, they recovered their own onside kick — it was the kicker, rookie Alexander Hillyard, who recovered it. They then used that to get another touchdown and the two-point to tie the game and send it to overtime.
But even in overtime, it looked bleak. They were on defense first, and I was like, okay, this is over, UBC is not good on defense — but they held them, and then they got the ball back and got the field goal. Off the walk-off, they got into the playoffs. That's gotta be it, in my opinion.
(Maia Cesario | Women’s Soccer): The best game this season had to be the semifinal game at nationals against Laval. For one, it was just the perfect storybook setup. They were playing Laval, who they played in nationals the year before, beating them in a really close 1–0 game. It was an insane revenge-match setup they’d have to get over to get back to the gold medal game.
Then, they fell down 2–0 really early in the game. It was obviously really tough for them. They were definitely holding possession and making a lot of shots, but they couldn't get in the net. That was, until Jayda Thompson went on an absolute scoring clinic. She had a brace — scoring two goals and assisting on a another goal — so that they could win the game 3–2, making it back to the national championship.
Obviously, it was just incredibly insane for them to have come back like that in that game — a big nail-biter. It also featured some amazing play by Thompson. Overall, it was so exciting as a game, and you couldn't help but just be amazed by the end of it.
(Luiza Teixeira | Women’s Hockey): I'll have to choose the consolation final against Waterloo. First of all, because of the difference in score. It was 7–2 for UBC, but despite that, after Waterloo got a power play within the first minute of play and scored only 66 seconds into the game, UBC looked like they were in danger. Then, the rest of the first period went by without any more goals.
There was lots pushing and shoving early and Waterloo got the momentum. They were playing at home. Their crowd was banging the glass and ringing a bunch of bells. But then, UBC turned things around, scoring four times during the second period and three times during the third.
One of the things that really impressed me was how UBC wasn't intimidated by the physicality of Waterloo. From what I watched in the Canada West, there wasn’t the same level of roughing, at least not at the level of Waterloo in this game. Multiple different players went down on the ice and had to be helped off the rink.
Despite the roughing, UBC won, with six out of their seven goals were scored by non-senior players. With that, I think that it goes to say how UBC will still be a strong team, even after their seniors leave. Annalise Wong, Grace Elliott, Elise Hugens, they're all very important players in the Canada West and in Canada, but UBC will still be a very strong team even without them.
Verdict:
As it turns out, this was the only category where that deciding, tiebreaker vote was needed. After both Football’s 31–29 overtime win over Regina to clinch the playoffs and Men’s Basketball’s 92–89 overtime win against Winnipeg in the Canada West semifinals got three votes, it was Men’s Basketball who came out on top. Here are the voting results:
- Men’s Basketball: CW Semifinal @ Winnipeg – 3 votes (tiebreaker)
- Football: Oçt. 24 @ Regina – 3 votes
- Men’s Hockey: Nov. 14 @ MacEwan – 0 votes
- Women’s Volleyball: U Sports Quarterfinal @ TWU – 0 votes
- Women’s Soccer: U Sports Semifinal vs Laval – 0 votes
- Women’s Hockey: U Sports Consolation Final vs Waterloo – 0 votes
(Caleb Peterson | Sports + Rec Editor): This was a tiebreak I didn’t want to have to decide. Both games are incredibly deserving nominees, with both featuring improbable late game comebacks to keep their team’s season alive. I can definitely see the argument that Football’s win was even more impressive, especially given how much of an underdog they were heading into the matchup.
But it has to be Men’s Basketball here. While the stakes were high for both teams — in a playoff game for Men’s Basketball and a pseudo-playoff game for Football — the end result mattered a lot more for Men’s Basketball than it did for Football.
Even with that win, Football was just delaying the inevitable. They had proven again and again throughout the season that their team simply wasn’t good enough to contend with the best in the conference, and while their win against Regina clinched a playoff spot, they’d be coming into the playoffs as the lowest seed, heading to Saskatchewan to play a team that beat them 51–14 earlier in the year. They didn’t stand a chance — and that played out, losing by 19 to end their season a week after this victory.
Men’s Basketball, on the other hand, had a lot more to play for. By beating Winnipeg, they clinched a spot in both the Canada West final and at nationals — and while they couldn’t come through in the end in either tournament, they played both much closer than Football did.
It’s the thinnest of margins. Both Dhadda’s game-tying three and Hillyard’s game-winning kick should go down in the record books. But the anticlimax of knowing your fate, despite clinching a playoff berth, deflates Football’s win slightly. Men’s Basketball takes this one, but not by much.
