May 7,2010

By MARK HUNTER
Kamloops Daily News Sports Reporter

Even though the TRU WolfPack has finally achieved full membership into Canada West, the fate of its soccer teams has not been decided.

Canada West’s member teams voted Thursday to give TRU full membership in the conference, which works under the umbrella of the CIS. The WolfPack had been a probationary member of CW since 2005, and had originally applied for full membership in 2009.

Unlike last year, when the members postponed all membership decisions, the WolfPack got its wish this year, getting more than the 75 per cent of the vote needed to gain full status. The vote was held at the CW annual general meeting in Victoria.

“When you’re trying to accomplish something and you finally accomplish it, I think there’s a sense of relief,” said WolfPack athletic director Ken Olynyk. “We’ve had our probation extended (in 2008) and then the whole membership issue with Canada West last year . . . to have the vote be accepted is a relief.”

For TRU, getting full membership opens a variety of doors, the most notable being the ability to declare teams into sports.

Olynyk said Thursday that he won’t rush to move the WolfPack’s men’s and women’s soccer teams — which currently play in the B.C. Colleges Athletics Association — into Canada West.

“We have to look at our direction,” Olynyk said. “That’s a question that everyone’s going to ask and it’s one that I’m going to wait on.

“We’ll see where we want to go . . . and what we can do.”

Olynyk and TRU vice-president of administration and finance Cliff Neufeld made a presentation to the CW membership on Wednesday.

As of September, when the decision becomes official, CW will have 13 full members, including the Fraser Valley Cascades, who entered the conference in 2005 and also were given full status Thursday. Fraser Valley also had to wait an extra year, like the WolfPack.

“Last year . . . some members had a problem understanding what the impact on growth would be on their institutions,” said CW president Sandy Slavin. “With the work we did (Wednesday) on the future competitive structure . . . I think that clarified the picture for members in terms of impacts on increasing memberships.”

Slavin said Wednesday’s competitive structure discussions surrounded the possibility of creating two regional associations in Western Canada, as was discussed at meetings in February.

“That split will happen when we have a sufficient amount of members within Canada West to do so,” she said. “In the meantime, we’re in a transition phase to accommodate the new members coming in.”

Olynyk says such a move likely is 10 years away.

The WolfPack has fielded four CW teams —men’s and women’s squads in basketball and volleyball — for each of the last five seasons.

The UBC-Okanagan Heat, based in Kelowna, was given a three-year term as a probationary member, and it plans to have four teams in CW in the fall — men’s and women’s basketball and men’s and women’s volleyball.

Two schools seeking probationary membership — the UNBC Timberwolves of Prince George and Nanaimo’s Vancouver Island Mariners — were declined.

Olynyk said he looks forward to watching the Kelowna-Kamloops rivalry on the basketball and volleyball courts.

“I welcome it because it creates a situation in which we get to compete against a school that’s relatively close to us,” he said. “Kelowna-Kamloops is a natural rivalry, no matter what area you’re looking at. It will be very healthy, a great rivalry, and we really look forward to it.”

Some of the other perks of membership include Olynyk being allowed to hold office — he’s now on the CIS eligibility committee — along with voting rights.

The WolfPack hasn’t had a lot of success since joining Canada West in 2005-06. Only the men’s volleyball team, which played host to the CIS championship in March, has ever made the playoffs, and has finished in the top six in Canada each of the last three seasons.

The women’s volleyball team is coming off a season in which it won only once, while the women’s and men’s basketball teams combined to win six games.

“I think the coaches’ everyday lives are going to be the same,” Olynyk said. “Some people might have been concerned, thinking that we’re not quite a full member, not quite in Canada West or the CIS.

“The coaches might downplay it, but I think when you’re recruiting future student-athletes, other institutions might use that information.”