Monthly Archives: August 2023

Thunder Indigenous Rugby – August 2023

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Thunder Tour to NZ Wraps Up – A Reflection on the 14 Day Tour with Highlights

What a tour! A party of 42 travelling around the north island of NZ (Aotearoa) for fourteen days in four large vans and a car covering about 1400 km and over 18 hours of driving time. During that time they played six matches (3 for boys, 3 for girls), attended five Powiri (cultural welcoming ceremonies at Marae), attended four high level training sessions. They stayed in two Marae, two motels and were biletted with player families for two nights. They attended three professional matches in the evenings at Eden Park (FIFA semi-final), Mt Smart Stadium (up the wahs!), and Central Energy Trust Stadium (Go Turbos). There were trips to the NZ Rugby Museum, the Auckland Museum, hikes up Mount Maunganui and Maungakiekie.

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Toronto Arrows Updates – August 2023

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Toronto Arrows Mourn Passing of Founder and President Bill Webb

A Message from the Toronto Arrows

It is with deep sadness that the Toronto Arrows organization joins the Webb Family in mourning the passing of our President and General Partner William “Bill” Webb after an illness he faced with courage and determination.

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Pacific Pride Updates – August 2023

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A Look at the Pacific Pride Roster for the Fall 2023 Season: First Match Saturday vs UBC

The Pacific Pride aka the Rugby Canada Development Academy kick off their fall season on Saturday against defending Premier men’s champions UBC. That game will be played at MacDonald Park, the JBAA home ground, and kickoff is 2:15pm. The match is part of the Coastal Cup which involves the Academy and the University sides UBC, UVic and TWU. The Coastal Cup schedule is here.

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UBC Thunderbirds – August 2023

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UBC and Head Coach Curry Hitchborn Part Ways

An unexpected announcement from UBC (posted below) indicates that Curry Hitchborn has stepped down from the head coach position at UBC. Several readers have been asking for more details but we don’t have any at this time.

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2024 Olympic Qualifier

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Canada Women Qualify for Olympics; Men Take the Repechage Path

As expected the women had an easy time of the North American Olympic qualifying as the USA had prequalified and weren’t at the tournament. Also as expected the men would have difficulty getting past USA. The men will have to win the repechage tournament in order to qualify.

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Canada v Tonga Updates – August 2023

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Canada Lose Second Test by Score of 36-12: On Aggregate 64-15

Canada completed their two match series with Tonga, losing by an aggregate score of 64-15 over both matches. There’s frustration building among fans with Rugby Canada unwilling to make any changes to the coaching staff. Popular rugby journalists, like Squidge and Bryan Ray, are starting to comment on the Rugby Canada inaction.

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From the Editor’s Desk – August 2023

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Site Maintenance; In NZ for 2 Weeks; Thunder Tour Updates

A brief note to let readers know what’s going on. The server host decided to migrate the BCRN site to a “new and improved” server on last minute notice and in the process broke the site. The existing code didn’t work and I’ve been busy trying to rewrite some parts of the code to get everything working. You may have noticed BCRN down for a day or two. Making matters worse they migrated a week old database and we’re missing stories from August 5th to 11th. So if you thought there was a recent story but now can’t find it, that’s the reason. I’ll try to get that fixed over the next few weeks.

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A Player’s Perspective: Canada to NZ – Part 6

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Playing for Taranaki Māori, Trip to Wellington and Historical Parallels With Canada and New Zealand

by Noah Bain

Kia Ora koutou, hello everyone, and thank you again for tuning in to BCRN, Article 6 of A Player’s Perspective. I cannot believe my blog writing career has made it this far and we are still going strong! I never saw myself doing something like this but look where we are now. To start us off here, there is TONS of test rugby to look forward to. At the time of writing, the Canada boys have not played yet, so good luck in these upcoming matches against Tonga. What an amazing opportunity ahead to test yourself against some extremely renowned players and for some, obtain their first cap. The recent Bledisloe Cup and Summer Test Series matches were a treat to watch along with most international sides naming their World Cup squads in the coming days. Lots of rugby happening and lots more to come with it being a World Cup year.

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