Fort St. John's Bowie on record 6.5-hour USports university game

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Shown here playing in the World University games, Fort St. John collegiate hockey player Connor Bowie played in a game with the TMU Bold which lasted over four overtimes on March 20th (Northeast BC Brogan Safety U-15 Trackers, Facebook)

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — A local hockey player described his experience in one of the longest college games on record as an unbridled example of “hockey passion.”

Fort St. John’s Connor Bowie’s team, the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold, squared off against Calgary’s Mount Royal University Cougars in the quarter-final round of the 2025 USports University Cup in Ottawa, Ontario.

The game started at 10 a.m. Fort St. John time on March 20th — and ended six and a half hours and four overtimes later on an unassisted goal by Bowie’s teammate Spencer Shugrue to secure a 5-4 win for TMU in the fifth extra period.

“It was crazy,” said Bowie. “[The game] really came down to endurance and who’s trained more and who has the tougher mental focus.

“When you play eight periods of hockey it really comes down to [is it] in your heart and wanting to win and have that passion? I think we did as a group. What a game.”

For his part, Bowie had two assists in the marathon win.

USports’ website wrote the game time of 143 minutes and 33 seconds was the 11th longest game of North American hockey – ever – and eclipsed the previous record for this tournament set by a four-overtime contest between University of Saskatchewan and Carleton University back in 2016.

It was the end of an uphill climb for the Bold. Fourth-seeded TMU faced a pair of two goal deficits against the tournament debutante Mount Royal Cougars, who advanced to the national championship tournament by virtue of its run to the Canada West University Conference final.

Bowie however says his team “never worried” down the stretch, tying it up with 11:21 minutes left to play in regulation.

“We have so much confidence in each other,” said Bowie. “We’ve been down. [There’s not] negative energy on the bench because we know we’ll get a couple [of goals] back. It’s more like ‘okay, now it’s time to go.’”

TMU now advances to the semi-final round, where they will take on the eighth-seed University of Ottawa, who upset top-ranked University of New Brunswick in Thursday’s second quarter final.

The University Cup semi-finals take place on Saturday, March 22nd starting at 10 a.m. local time, 1 p.m. Eastern. The championship final takes place on March 23rd at 5:00 p.m. Eastern.

All tournament games are being streamed online through CBC’s Sports YouTube channel. For more details, visit USports’ website.