While the tournament is eight months away, Thompson Rivers University held an official launch event for the 2022 U-SPORTS National Men’s Soccer Championships Tuesday afternoon.

This will be the second time that TRU will have hosted the event in the last five years. Back in 2017, the Wolfpack upset Canada West Champion UBC in the bronze medal game.

“This makes it real now,” TRU men’s soccer Head Coach John Antulov said.

“We’re really excited to start to get the community involved. We are going to be competitive with our roster of returning veteran players.”

One of the most veterans is defender Josh Banton, who was part of the 2017 team.

“We’ve been waiting for this. Eight months can’t come quick enough,” Banton added.

At today kick-off luncheon with delegated from the university, the Wolfpack, and the City of Kamloops, TRU Athletic Director Curtis Atkinson said adding RBC as a title sponsor is key.

“It’s a national event, and we want to welcome everyone back. We bid on this event way before COVID,” he said. “We have stayed in the mix, been a consistent top-10 team. It all really lined up for us.”

Tickets for the 2022 U-SPORTS men’s soccer nationals can be found here.

⚽️ MSOC | The 2022 @USPORTSca Men’s Soccer Championship presented by @RBC is coming to Kamloops!

Early bird pricing for tournament passes available now for a limited time.

📰 https://t.co/J7UWpEUXbT
🎟️ https://t.co/J7UWpEUXbT#FearTheWolf pic.twitter.com/jeeaFDeQTe

— TRU WolfPack 🐺 (@GoTRUWolfPack) March 15, 2022