Reflection on the BC Premier, BC Club Finals – Look Ahead to 2026-27

Now that the club finals are over a chance to review the season, the finals event and look ahead to next season.

What worked

The club finals event from a live stream perspective was for the most part well done. The BCRU had a live camera and announcers on both fields for all seven matches. They didn’t use their Veo Ai system which is like watching rugby through a a traffic camera. It would have been nice to have the rosters shown on screen at the beginning of the match, but some of the announcers mentioned they didn’t have the rosters, we’ll cover rosters later.

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Rugby Canada Releases Annual Report – What’s Not Mentioned

Sometimes in the news it’s what’s missing that’s important. This is one of those stories. I struggled with writing this article but information was presented to me a while ago that keeps resurfacing in daily thought, and it’s time to share it with the wider rugby community, perhaps to excise it from my list of responsibilities as a rugby journalist. It’s an unpleasant story, it won’t make you feel good, so you may want to pause and turn back before proceeding.

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Wet Weather Changes Some Weekend Matches; Logan Weidner Capped for Romania; Rugby Canada Changing Digital Platform; TBT to June 2011 at Buccaneer 7s

The wet weather has predictably changed some matches this weekend as municipalities, which own most of the rugby playing venues, are becoming increasingly more protective of the fields. It’s good to see some clubs being proactive in finding alternative venues. Westshore have moved their match vs JBAA to Starlight Stadium, the match is now at 7pm under the lights on Saturday. Other changes we’ve noted as of Thursday evening according to the BC Rugby fixture page, the UBC v Capilano men’s Premier match is now at Klahanie.

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UVic in Portugal, BCRU Clamps Down on Player Eligibility, BC High School Player Starts Petition to Play Rugby This Season

A few items on the Editor’s desk this morning, UVic Vikes men’s team are in Portugal and they’ve won their first two matches. The BCRU has updated the penalties for infractions of the Player Eligibility Rules. There’s a high school player who has started a Petition to persuade BC School Sports to allow him to play rugby this season.

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Analysis of Amateurism and Professionalism in Global Rugby: The Argentine Model

This article is based on a YouTube video interview with Les Cusworth on the United Rugby Fans channel. You can find the full video here. I generally put interviews and podcasts through NotebookLM now to get an executive summary, I find it distills the interview to key points which from a time management point of view is helpful. Not everything in the Argentine model will work in Canada but there are some key points worth considering, basically it’s celebrating the amateur model based on local clubs, keeping travel down and bottom-up growth.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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