It’s not the college life most Canadians students experience. Mid terms are going to happen, surprise assignments and pop quizzes too. Try participating in four straight national field hockey championships, each November.

“I don’t really have a social life in the first few months of the school year,” said UVic Vikes defender Perri Espeseth, who was one of three Vikes named to the Canada West all-star team last week along with fellow defender and Cowichan product Katie Collison and goalie Kaitlyn Williams (White Rock).

Studying applied theatre, Espeseth is one of many Cowichan players on the Vikes, part of a core who has played together since high school. That includes sisters Katie (midfield) and Amanda (forward) Collison and Katie Bennett (forward).

Like her teammates, Espeseth has traded in a host of social luxuries for a mantle full of hardware. The 21-year-old is hoping to win her second CIS championship this week, hosted at UVic, Nov. 5-8.

“It was a struggle for the first couple of years, but you have the backup of your teammates,” and, the highlight of her CIS career. “A gold medal.”

In fact, in her previous three years Espeseth has a gold (2008), silver (2007) and bronze (2006) medals at the CIS championships.

“There’s some drawbacks to playing CIS, one of them that you can’t play other sports, no intramurals,” she admits. It’s an honest take from the hard working Espeseth, who was named to the all-Canadian team after helping the Vikes defeat the Alberta Pandas 2-1 for the Vikes’ 11th McCrae Cup as national champs at home last year.

Epseseth was identified early at Cowichan high school as having the capabilities to play in the CIS and, though she misses other sports, enjoys the culture of being a Vike.

Prior to screening video of the Vikes’ final games of the regular season, a pair of losses to the UBC Thunderbirds, Espeseth talked about entering the tournament having lost all four games to UBC this year.

“We competed hard with UBC in (the final regular season game), we should have won it. I think we scared them a little.

“It doesn’t make a difference to us what place we came in during the season, we know what we can achieve. As hosts we knew we’d be in the finals and all we’ve worried about is playing the best game we can,” she said.

Pre-tourney ranking:

UVic and UBC are tied for the most McCrae Cup national championships with 11 each. But both take a secondary ranking to the Guelph Gryphon’s in the CIS pre-championship seeding. But the Vikes (3rd) know the seeding means little once the tourney has started. Last year the Vikes were ranked fourth and drew the fifth and bottom-ranked Alberta in the final.

Seeding:

1. Guelph Gryphons

2. UBC Thunderbirds

3. UVic Vikes

4. Toronto Varsity Blues

5. Alberta Pandas

Championship schedule:

Nov. 5, Thursday, 11:50 a.m. Vikes vs. U of T.

Nov. 6, Friday 10 a.m., Vikes vs. UBC.

Nov. 7, Saturday, 10 a.m. Vikes vs. Alberta. Tie breaking strokes at 5:30 p.m.

Nov. 8, Sunday, Bronze 10 a.m., Gold medal game, 1 p.m.