Brityn Hinsche, one of the busiest goalies in the history of the UNBC Timberwolves women’s soccer program and the MVP of her team in 2024, might have played her last game for the green and gold.
Sometime over the next two weeks the 21-year-old from Williams Lake will find out if Treaty United, a semi-professional team that plays in the all-Ireland Women’s National League, wants her to come overseas to make saves for the team in 2025.
Hinsche learned the team was interested when she got a call a few weeks ago from Mara McCleary, her former UNBC teammate, who is heading into her second year with Trinity United.
McCleary knew Treaty United was looking for a goalie and suggested Hinsche might be their answer. McCleary asked Hinsche to send a highlight video, and she had no shortage of footage to send.
“Honestly, I was shocked, I wanted to play internationally for a very long time now and even just getting the possibility to play for them, it made my morning so much better,” said Hinsche. “Actually I thought varsity (soccer) was as far as I was going to go, but getting a semipro offer is crazy.”
However, there’s a chance the Irish offer might not materialize. Four days ago, Hinsche spoke to the team’s assistant coach who told her they might have somebody else in mind to fill that goaltender’s role.
“They’re looking at another ‘keeper right now in Ireland and if that doesn’t work out then they’ll get back to me,” she said.
“The fact he said I was good enough to join the team and that the only thing standing in the way was really the cost aspect of it, it means I still have the potential to go and he didn’t flat-out tell me no. So that gives me hope that I’ll still end up over there.”
Hinsche told the coach she would pay for her own flights, if that’s what it came down to. But there’s more to it than that.
“I completely understand, they pay for my flight there and to come home and my accommodations and everything like that, so it’s quite a bit of costs coming out of their pocket,” she said. “They would just pay the soccer wage (to a local player) and it would be a lot cheaper to get local ‘keeper.
“I don’t actually know when they’re going to tell me but they said in a week or two.”
Treaty United players earn 520 euros per month, which works out to a monthly salary of about $800.
The team is co-owned by Canadian Ciara McCormack, who was born and raised in North Vancouver. Backed by Tricor Pacific Capital, a Vancouver investment firm, she bought the team in 2023, having signed on to play for Trinity United, after 13 years with the Irish national team. Trinity United is the first European-based soccer team owned by Canadians.
Trinity United tapped into the Canadian talent pool and signed seven Canadians last year, including defender McCleary, who played for UNBC for four seasons from 2016-20 and was a U SPORTS Canada West all-star.
Hinsche, an Academic All-Canadian throughout her UNBC career, will graduate in April with a biomedical degree. She’s also studying psychology and has applied for UNBC masters counselling program. If she is playing in Ireland she figures she could continue her masters studies remotely.
For three seasons, the five-foot-11 Hinsche has been an integral part of the Timberwolves team that has struggled to find the win column. After going 5-6-3 in her rookie 2022 season, UNBC has gone 1-26-1 over the past two seasons.
She made 58 saves in three games in her first year, bringing her three-season total to an astounding 300 shots.
In 2023, Hinsche tied former UNBC goalie Jordan Hall’s single season save record of 128, which was later topped by Winnipeg’s Madison Priebe that season. This past season Hinsche finished with 124 saves and likely would have owned the record has she not missed 2 1/2 games with a shoulder injury suffered in the first game of the season.
Her first game back on Sept.15, on home turf at Masich Place Stadium, Hinsche stopped all 21 shots in a 1-0 win over UBC-Okanagan, which earned her the Canada West player-of-the-week award.
Hinsche was called upon often as the last line of defence on a UNBC team that has struggled trying to compete on a Canada West landscape that includes several U SPORTS powerhouses. She admits it would have been a lot more difficult for her to draw notice from the semi-pro ranks had she played for a perennial contender for the Canadian university women’s soccer crown, like UBC or Trinty Western.
“I’m very thankful I got the opportunity to be seen as I am, I don’t think I would have go that opportunity anywhere else,” said Hinsche. “It just made me a better ‘keeper in general because I’ve been getting that experience and can say I actually that I’ve have three years of experience instead of just getting like 10 shots in those three years.”
If she doesn’t came back to play soccer at UNBC, she won’t forget how much being a UNBC student-athlete has changed her life.
“Honestly I’ve created so many friends and connections just through all the academic programs and the athletic programs I’ve been in,” said Hinsche. “It’s really helped my interpersonal skills and broken me out of my shell to be part of the community, which I’m really thankful for. I don’t think I would ever have been so open as I am without coming here.”
Hinsche wrote her last exam on Thursday and will be heading back to Williams Lake on Friday. Her dad, Lorne, is a logger who owns and operates L. Hinsche Enterprises and on Monday she’ll be working with him doing a job over the Christmas break unlike any other a UNBC student will tackle
“I’m going to go run skidder and loader for him,” she said.
That’s nothing new to Hinsche. She’s been in the cab running heavy equipment almost as long as she can remember.
“I’ve been doing that since before I could touch the pedals,” Hinsche said. “I used to sit on my dad’s lap and steer while he ran the pedals and stuff like that. I did it as a part-time job in high school as well, every chance I got I was out there.”
She likes the work and the job satisfaction it brings.
“I like the consistency of it, I like how you’re doing the same thing every day and you can see your progress as the wood builds up,” she said. “I don’t like office jobs. I like being outside in nature actually doing stuff.
“Running a machine that‘s six or seven heights of me, its just so cool for me. It’s an older machine, I think it’s an ’03, but it’s got heating and a closed cab, which a lot of the older ones don’t have.”
Lorne has just one other employee and he reminds Brityn how proud he is to have her with him chopping down trees for local sawmills.
“He tells me that all the time,” she said. “I’m the only family employee. I have one sister and she doesn’t like to do that kind of stuff.”
