BC Bears vs Ontario Blues Two Match Series in May: Hosts Capilano and Shawnigan Lake School
It’s good news to hear there will be senior men’s rep competition this spring. Ontario are visiting BC for 3 matches, one against a regional team, Vancouver Island, before taking on the BC Bears for two games, one at Capilano and the other at Shawnigan Lake School.
It’s good timing, the BC Premier will have just wrapped up and the Ontario season will just be beginning. Ontario players in BC also will be readily available. I hope the national team coach, Stephen Meehan, is getting involved in encouraging players to be there or else. If you’re not playing MLR or professionally in a Tier 1 country, you should be playing in this match.
It’s also good to see Curry Hitchborn as the head coach of BC, there’s some confidence with him at the helm that recruiting as well as preparation and selection will be done right.
Match Schedule
May 17, 2026 – Vancouver Island Tide vs. Ontario Blues (Location TBD)
May 20, 2026 – BC Bears vs. Ontario Blues Match 1 (Capilano RFC – North Vancouver)
May 23, 2026 – BC Bears vs. Ontario Blues Match 2 (Shawnigan Lake School)
from BCRU
BC Rugby and Rugby Ontario are proud to announce the BC Bears and Ontario Blues Senior Men’s Provincial Representative Teams will contest a two-match Series for the inaugural Canada Cup this May.
Thanks to funding from the Canadian Rugby Foundation, this highly-anticipated interprovincial showdown will see the Bears and Blues face off in a thrilling two-match Series, renewing one of Canadian Rugby’s most competitive Rugby rivalries.
Matches will be hosted on both Vancouver Island and the Mainland, showcasing elite domestic talent and providing athletes with a high-performance competition ahead of the 2027 Rugby World Cup. In addition, the Blues will take on the Vancouver Island Tide as part of their three-match tour of British Columbia.
Matches will take place on the following dates (kick-off times TBC):
May 17, 2026 – Vancouver Island Tide vs. Ontario Blues (Location TBD)
May 20, 2026 – BC Bears vs. Ontario Blues Match 1 (Capilano RFC – North Vancouver)
May 23, 2026 – BC Bears vs. Ontario Blues Match 2 (Shawnigan Lake School)
Both the BC Bears and Ontario Blues will wear kits designed and made the organisations’ partner, O’Neills Sportswear. Thank you to the team at O’Neills Sportswear North America for their generous support of this inaugural Canada Cup Series.
The Series aims to strengthen interprovincial competition and offer athletes the opportunity to test themselves against some of the country’s best. For Rugby fans, it’s a rare chance to witness high-intensity provincial Senior Men’s Rugby in their own communities.
Curry Hitchborn will lead the BC Bears as Senior Men’s Head Coach, while Phil Murphy, Iain McLeish and Shane Cahill make up the Ontario Blues’ Coaching Staff.
“Coaching the BC Bears at any level is always an honor and being able to coach the Senior men’s side is the highest,” said Hitchborn. “Being in a position to utilise our Men’s Premier League competition as a selection tool to face Ontario in a two-game Series is the perfect way to engage with our Clubs and reward the aspirations of our senior men as they battle each weekend.”
Hitchborn added: “I want to personally thank BC Rugby CEO, Matthew Carter, for his heavy lifting alongside the Canadian Rugby Foundation to get this historic competition the visibility and recognition it deserves. There is no substitute for best-on-best and these games reflect that.”
Sandro Fiorino, Rugby Ontario Technical Manager, High Performance, said: “It’s great to see that BC and Ontario can come together to provide our Senior Men’s players a quality pathway competition for athletes to showcase their skills and talent.”
Further details on the Series will be announced in the coming weeks, including livestream information and kick-off times.
BC Rugby encourages all Rugby fans across the province to come out and support the Bears and Blues, and experience top-tier Canadian Men’s Rugby this May.
Canadian Rugby Foundation
The Canadian Rugby Foundation, established in 2003, is a non-share capital corporation incorporated under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act and a registered charity under the Income Tax Act (Canada) designated as a public foundation (registration number 869159186). The mission of the Foundation is to contribute to the growth and development of rugby in Canada by “Investing in the Future of Canadian Rugby”. To accomplish this, the Foundation creates and manages endowed funds or awards funds in partnership with local rugby clubs and Fund sponsoring individuals or organizations to promote and support rugby activities by making grants to and through qualified donees.
“If you’re not playing MLR or professionally in a Tier 1 country, you should be playing in this match”
I am going to make a prediction that less than 50% of all the players on the two team playing in the Premier finals will want to play for the BC Bears. $$$ to players has taken out the prestige, the pure love of the game, comradery, pride to play for the BC Bears.
What happened to the Highlander?
BEST of the Best?? Yet we have the Import rules because BCRU fears import (better than Canadian Player?) players at too good and will displace the opportunity to developed Canadian player?. Something does not make sense we play interprovincial to play better players to get better?????.
I think BC playing is Great but we will not be seeing BC’s best. I don’t know what the answer is but I do not think $$$$ is the answer, it is just a band aid.
Sorry for my rambling but just playing BC Players VS Ontario Player do not make them better? They have to play during the regular season against the BEST player that wanted to play, be it imports or domestic and $$$ has to be eliminated
Two points:
1. You say that money has taken away from the game. What do you mean by that? Do you consider paying for flights and/or accommodation as money, or just pure cash paid to players? Who would enforce the removal of financial support, and how would they do it? Consider that the majority of premier level clubs are doing these activities today, so enforcing this in practice would be very difficult.
2. The CRC model worked (in theory) because regions would select their best players, they would compete against each other, and then the best players from that competition would represent Canada ‘A’ at the ARC against other international teams. There was a strong incentive in which to participate, and the winning coach would become the Canada ‘A’ coach for that tournament with the ability to select other coaches as development coaches. I don’t think this BC vs Ontario series is a bad idea by any means, but I also agree with you that the best players may not want to play. What’s the incentive for them to participate?
1. The incentive to play Bears/rep rugby is rugby players LIKE playing rugby + competitive players LIKE playing higher levels to get better & test themselves. Comradery, prestige, travel are tertiary incentives. I’ve played in the prem league for 10+ years and not a single player I’ve played with or against has ever had Financials as a meaningful incentive to play – it’s just not a factor. Some guys don’t play because they need to focus on their careers + earning money but that’s about it and a couple hundred bucks a week/month isn’t going to move the needle. There isn’t enough money in BC/CAD rugby to change this. Enough money = players get $5k/month minimum to REPLACE their day jobs. Most high achieving athletes are high achieving in all aspects of life and don’t want to live as a pauper in BC (insane cost of living) just to play rep rugby.
2. The reason most BC players don’t play these ADDITIONAL competitions is because they just finished a 9 month premier season (Aug pre-szn – April playoffs) and they want to rest and enjoy the best part of the Canadian year (Summer).
3. Please put the conversation around the “import rule” to bed. It’s such a tired discussion. Every good player/team has no issue with it. Without imports the BC premier league would be a fraction of what it is, competition wise. Further, good players like playing against other good players + strong opposition makes everyone better (“iron sharpers iron”). The only reason people are against it is because they don’t like losing and it’s a convenient excuse. Displacing Canadian players is not a good argument either. If “x Canadian Player” was so good he would play – bottom line. This isn’t tennis where there’s 1-2 spots per side. Rugby has 23 roster spots per team and there’s 10 teams in the prem league. IF YOU WERE GOOD YOU WOULD PLAY.
To Low and Slow,
Your two points are excellent. I don’t believe I can offer a solution to your two point as I believe this will take time and a collaborative approach from all the grassroots club and the various unions in order to address, the structural issues that need to be addressed.
However, I can express my two bits to start the discussion and for anyone to add there thoughts as well.
Point 1
1. All alright cash payments and stipends to any players, whether import or Canadian should stop immediately, unless the compensation is being paid as a carded player under the CRU training program. Benefit of this, is that any player who plays at that point is playing for the love of the the game, the benefits of being a member of the club, the community, the camaraderie and friendship and resources offered by each club.
Also I do no think most clubs are doing these activities and if they are (my limited discussion with various clubs other wish they did not have to) it is not good for clubs in the long run.
ie look at the Toronto Arrows and Highlanders.
Any playing MLR or Carded who want to play at the club level during the regular season should forfeit all forms of compensations. If any of the above mentioned players want to play for a team they must play a set minimum number of game and cannot accept any form of compensation and cannot be allowed to be brought in play a game, no flying in or helicopter to attend single games. Keep the game pure in the truest sense to be playing for the love of the game
Enforcement is by the Rugby Unions and it is enforcement can be relatively quite easily if one want with a simple call to the CRA tip line for an audit of expense. Yes clubs could attempt to hide it as marketing, promotion etc but it would come out. Enforcement can be done it is just a matter of how hard you want to push it.
Helping players find a job, accommodations is acceptable but again this area can also be subject to abuse and may require some monitoring, but it can be done.
Money saved from paying players could then be channeled by the clubs to building and developing youth and other programs to grow the sport
Point 2. This is harder to address and probably would take longer. I think anyone who wants to represent Canada has to want to “for the love of the game” pride, give back for what the game has done for them, sense of community and club support.
When you take money out of the equation for players playing at the club level, then you get player who will develop and be instilled with some of the virtues listed above. A Story shared with me by a coach of player who had many of the qualities listed above and played for the BC Bears, but who life was cut short of how his club because his character and the love his club had for him, raised a staggering amount of fund to help with his family. The Pride that this club had for this player and pride this player had for playing for his club are what we need to develope in player who want to Represent Canada.
The comments above are mine and I do not profess to have all the answers but this forum is for discuss. There are not right or wrong, which is why I said at the beginning, the solution will have to take time and will be a collaborative one.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. The questions I asked were in good faith, and not meant to illustrate any opposition to your points, but rather to continue the discussion.
Around point one – I don’t think it’s feasible to effectively monitor or enforce what you mentioned, regardless of one’s stance on compensation at the club level. If someone involved at the club owns property, and chooses to rent it out to a player at below market value then that’s compensation even though it looks above board.
The idea that any governing body would be able to not only ask for, but also analyze and draw meaningful conclusions from bank statements, income records etc is not practical.
Do we want to advocate for increased enforcement and policing of this, or instead choose to allocate the resources required into growing the game at the grassroots or age grade levels instead? My vote would be for the latter, considering we have limited resources overall.
Clubs that spend beyond their means will soon become obsolete anyway, so it’s a problem that is likely to take care of itself. If the point is to make things fair and equitable, that is the wrong path to go down as there will be inequities regardless of policy. Things like location, marketability etc.
On point two – I agree that players, coaches, and supporters should be altruistic in their motivations. That is not always the case however. The point is not to create a financial incentive, but to put some motivation into players in order to participate. If they play well at this BC vs Ontario series will they get a potential look for selection right before a World Cup cycle? That would be intrinsic motivation as you mentioned. But if the National team is going to disregard this series and instead pick whoever they want, then the players have no real incentive to participate other than ‘the love of the game’.
My point around the CRC model was that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, an opportunity for players to advance and climb higher up the ladder. Many of the players identified in this era came from that competition who went on to win many caps for the national team at a time when we were a lot stronger than we are now: Lucas Rumball, Andrew Quattrin, Andrew Coe, Ray Barkwill, Travis Larsen, Theo Sauder, Nanyak Dala, Gradyn Bowd, Ben Lesage etc.
Regardless of motive, altruistic or not, there is a hole to fill by having a competition that does allow for the national team to select up and coming players who would not have had that visibility. The women’s pathway is far better set up and more mature, which has likely contributed to their strength over the last 5-8 years.
Great comments and discussion from above. Your comments and points should all be point of discussion with BCRU and CRU. Constructive comments and different points of view are always valuable inputs to solving problems. Thank you all for your input.