The VIU Mariners will welcome five teams, including the Korea University Tigers for their inaugural showcase Jan. 5-7. (VIU Mariners Hockey)

By Dan Marshall

University Hockey

VIU Mariners host first ever showcase hockey tournament

Jan 5, 2024 | 9:53 AM

NANAIMO — The VIU Mariners are looking to entertain fans and spread awareness about university-level hockey by hosting the Tom Harris University Showcase.

In all it’s three days of hockey with three games a day happening from Jan. 5-7 at the Nanaimo Ice Centre.

Organizer and VIU Mariners team president Gord Nowicki said the goal of this six-team event is to get more exposure for the team and for BCIHL hockey in Nanaimo.

“It’s more of a showcase than a tournament. Each team is playing three games. The BCIHL teams aren’t playing against each other. UVIC is our first game Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. and then SFU has all the middle games at 4:15 p.m. and VIU has all the 7:30 p.m. slots.”

Two of the other clubs invited play in a similar league in Alberta.

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“We’ve got SAIT and Concordia University of Edmonton. Both of those are in the ACAC in Alberta. It’s a very strong league and we should match up well against them. It’s hard to say because we’ve never played them.”

The other team, and the VIU Mariner’s first opponent is the Korea University Tigers, based on Seoul, South Korea.

“They’re looking pretty good, Nowicki said. “Their captain is apparently quite the player. He’s the captain of their world junior team. They play a level down from where Team Canada plays,” Nowicki said.

The Mariners are currently 8-3 and in first place in the five-team BCIHL but Nowicki wanted his players to get a taste of the calibre of play from teams outside of BC.

“Looking at the quality of our league we wanted to give our players some more experience. We started talking about maybe bringing one team in and we had a lot of interest. So we decided to make the showcase and we’ve got the Tom Harris Foundation who stepped up and they wanted to be part of it and they think it’s something good for our community. Then a bunch of other sponsors stepped up.”

Nowicki thinks fans will appreciate how good the hockey is especially with so many players coming from a junior hockey background.

“We’ve been going since 2017 but nobody seems to know about the team. We want people to know this is excellent hockey. These are men so they’re bigger, stronger and faster. It’s awesome to see that these guys are going to university and they’re going to be successful in our community and they’re excellent hockey players.”

There are some free tickets for the showcase available at Harris Mazda in Nanaimo, otherwise tickets are available at the door for five dollars for students and ten dollars for adults.

Day passes will also be sold for all three days.

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