Long-time rivals hope some time apart can rekindle their once passionate pointless competitiveness

By Brad McLeod

Photo by Vaikunthe Banerjee

VANCOUVER— According to a joint statement from the two schools early last week, Simon Fraser University and longtime on-and-off rival, the University of British Columbia, are officially taking “a break” from their hatred of one another this summer in order to pursue other rivals.

The decision is apparently a mutual agreement according to sources close to the schools, amid rumours that the universities desire to compete with each other has been lackluster in recent years and that UBC has been in a not-so secret secondary rivalry with UVic for some time now.

“It’s really a private matter between the combined 80,000 students of the two schools” explained UVic undergraduate Todd Barker, “but to me it seems like UBC really hasn’t been holding up their end of rivalry recently and has been way too respectful of students choosing to study at SFU without making snide comments about how they just couldn’t get into UBC… that’s probably because UBC is full of pussies and UVIC FOOTBALL RULES!!!”

Neither UBC nor SFU have had anything negative to say about each other since the announcement, but both schools are optimistic that they’ll be able to think of something by nextfall.

“I just really respect UBC as a great learning institution right now” admitted one SFU student about their former enemy, “I mean, it seems like they’ve got a really nice campus, they’re one of the top ranked schools in the world, and plus my brother goes there now… I’d love to hate them but I can’t really think of any real reasons to other than their close proximity to us.”

UBC students have been equally silent and polite about their feelings towards SFUers and in a visit to the UBC campus last week The Peak actually overheard a student legitimately remark “well I’ve heard SFU’s got a good communications program” without even a trace of sarcasm.

“You know since we moved to the NCAA and don’t really have many sports competitions anymore it’s been really had to keep up a healthy rivalry” commented John Scott, a senior at SFU “Of course, the rivalry has always been a little rocky but now that the sports are gone we can’t even fake any animosity.”

While UBC has already been linked to hating UVic, Capilano and Langara over the summer, SFU has not been as active in picking up rivals.

“Well, I’ve been trying to spark a little rivalry between us and the University of Toronto because there’s a guy who goes there that went to my high school and he’s a bit of a dick,” explained first year SFU Kinesiology student, Alan Parker, “but you know how it is with these long-distance rivalries, they never work out.”

Although all indications have been that the pair of schools will be willing to give the rivalry another go once the summer semester is over and they’re done exploring, some students however, like UBC’s James Durant, believe that it might be over for good.

“The rivalry doesn’t really work anymore, we’re just too different” Durant told The Peak upon hearing the news, “All of our competitiveness just seems kind of silly now, you know, it’s like…wait did you just call it the SFU-UBC rivalry?”