How Many Rugby Clubs in BC? A Look at the Numbers and Comparing to the Province of Buenos Aires

How many rugby clubs are in BC? Sounds like an easy question but it depends on how you define a rugby club. This all started with a conversation with Les Cusworth, the former Director of Rugby of the Argentina Rugby Union, comparing the number of rugby clubs in the province of Buenos Aires with the number of rugby clubs in the province of British Columbia. Simple right, maybe. If you start with wiki, it will tell you 65 rugby clubs for BC and “76 clubs directly affiliated and 15 competing as guests” so 91 altogether for Buenos Aires. The information is dated, Les says there are over 100 clubs now in Buenos Aires. The BCRU states it has “66 registered community rugby clubs across BC” in its recent documents, that number matches with the 2025 AGM Voting Allocations for Voting Members document. How does that number of 66 correlate with number of clubs we see in the league structure, Premier, Div 1, Div 2, Div 3 for men and women which is 31? It depends how you define rugby club.

Continue reading→

A Review of 2025 from October to December: Canadian Men Drop 3 in Europe, SVNS Series Starts for Women, University Titles Decided Guelph Win Men’s – UBC Win Women’s, BC Youth Club Titles Decided

The October to December window saw the men’s XVs team travel to Europe for the November tests, they dropped games to Romania, Georgia and Portugal. The University championships kicked off with UBC winning the women’s title over UVic and Guelph winning the men’s title over ETS. The SVNS series started for the women with stops in Dubai and Cape Town, the women finished 6th in both tournaments. MLR dropped a bombshell in October, only 7 spots for non-USA players per team, and Canadian players were included as imports. The BC club youth championships wrapped up in December with Abbotsford taking both U16 and U18 girls, CW winning U18 boys and Capilano U16 boys.

Continue reading→

A Review of 2025 from July to September: Canadian Women Win Silver at World Cup, Canadian Men Qualify for RWC 2027, BC Women Win Gold at Summer Games & U19 Nationals, BC Premier Starts 2025-26 Season

The July to September window had a lot of highlights, the Canadian women won Silver at the World Cup after going 3-0 in the pool rounds, defeating Australia in the quarter-finals and NZ in the semi-finals. The Canadian men qualified for the 2027 World Cup with their win over USA. The return of Tyler Ardron and Evan Olmstead for that one match was crucial. The BC Premier 2025-26 season kicked off in September. BC women won Gold at the Summer Games and at the U19 Nationals.

Continue reading→

A Review of 2025 from April to June: BC Club Finals, Pacific Four Series, Challenger 7s Series, High School Finals, U20 Men in Oceania Tournament, World Rugby 7s Final, MLR Final

The period from April to June saw the BC Club leagues wrap up with the Ravens winning the men’s Premier, Thunderbirds the women’s. The national women started their Pacific Four series in the USA, they would defeat USA and Australia and draw with NZ. The men’s 7s team were in the Challenger 7s series and finished top four winning admission to the World Rugby 7s Final in LA. Unfortunately they didn’t finish top 4 there and have to start back at the RAN 7s and SVNS 3. The women won Bronze in LA. The BC high school finals took place with St. George’s winning the top competition for boys, G.P. Vanier for girls. The U20 men did exceptionally well in the Oceania U20 tournament, defeating Samoa and Tonga but losing to eventual winner, Fiji. New England with 7 Canadians won the MLR title in June.

Continue reading→

A Review of 2025 from January to March: U18, MLR, BC Rugby Season, Men’s and Women’s 7s, U20, High School, University, Pacific Pride, Editorials

We posted over 300 articles last year and we’ll go through some of the key ones from January to March. We’ve highlighted 21 articles that give a quick overview of the first quarter of the season, starting with U18, to MLR, BC Rugby season, men’s and women’s 7s, U20, high school, university, Pacific Pride, guest posts and Rugby Canada shenanigans at the admin level.

Continue reading→

It’s that time of year, time to take a rest, rejuvenate, enjoy friends and family and put rugby on the back burner for a day or two. We’ll be back on December 26th to start our review of the year’s highlights and look at what’s coming for 2026.

So Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice whatever name you put to the end of year celebrations. See you in a couple of days to review the year and look ahead to the new year.

Mark
Editor BCRN

Continue reading→

What’s Happening with BCRU Board? Two Recent Resignations;  Hall of Fame Nominees Not Ratified and HoF Event Cancelled

The recent media release from the BCRU (see below) was short and to the point, Board President Andy Margolis was resigning. I received a message from a long time member of the BC Rugby community shortly after, “Can’t believe the guy quit or was relieved after three months [ed. more like 5 months], I have a hard time accepting someone of his calibre changes his mind about the state of rugby in BC in just three months. Any hard hitting journalism about the BCRU coming out?” I was being called out, probably the only person resembling a rugby journalist in BC nowadays, what’s Patrick Johnston doing these days, and Dan Fumano, they’re real journalists but they have real jobs as well. OK, I’ll spill my guts and tell you what I know.

Continue reading→

BCRU Offers Invitation to “Develop Your Game in BC” this Winter, RC Starts “Task Force” on University Rugby

There were a couple of media releases last week that caught my eye, the first was the BCRU official invitation to players from across Canada to come west to play in the BC leagues this winter. I like it, it’s a no brainer for me. When we had national team coaches who were immersed in Canadian rugby, it was a given, they recognized it was the only place in Canada to play rugby in the winter. They would encourage players to move west. Now that we have coaches on the men’s side that have no background in Canadian rugby, the BCRU have to state the obvious. The last Canadian coach of the men’s program was Ric Suggitt in 2008, it’s crazy, 17 years since we’ve had a Canadian at the helm of the men’s program. The BCRU media release is posted below, hopefully we’ll see some results. A lot will depend on what happens with the MLR and where players who don’t pick up contracts will go. The national team coach will have an impact based on the message he’s sending to players.

Continue reading→

From BC Premier to UFC; BC Premier Week 2 Photographers; Docuseries on Women’s Rugby Team

A few items on the Editor’s Desk this Sunday. Michelle Montague from rugby to MMA professional, the photographers who shoot in the BC Premier and a docuseries on the women’s XVs team set to be released in 2026.

Continue reading→

Andrew Quattrin Signs in Pro D2 France; Super Rugby Schedule Announced; BC University Tours and Nationals Qualification Schedule; Curry Hitchborn Named Capilano Director of Rugby

A few stories of interest as we wait for the men’s and women’s national team rosters to be announced on Thursday/Friday. As a reminder it’s Canada v Japan men at 1am PT on TSN and Canada v Wales women at 4am PT. Hopefully TSN will have both matches in their Games on Demand archive on Saturday.

Continue reading→