Category Archives: Features

Player Agents & Agencies

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Looking at Player Pathways: Player Agents and Agencies

So you want to play pro rugby, or maybe travel the world playing amateur or semi-pro rugby in different countries. You might be able to get connections through your club, or you could look up a Player Agent and see what they can provide. I don’t know any of the Agents well enough to recommend but there is one that reps some players in the BC Premier. You can check out their profile on Instagram where they post recent signing and placements. The company is ARM, America’s Rugby Management, and it’s run by David Jackson. He’s also Director of Rugby with the Atlantic Privateers, and has strong links to Nova Scotia rugby. He is originally from NZ and has links there as well. He recently was involved in getting Izzak Kelly and Sam Miller into the Portugal club Benfica. He also represents Brock Gallagher and Foster Dewitt.

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Top 10 Canadian Rugby Influencers

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A Look at the Top 10 Canadian Rugby Influencers on Instagram

It’s that gap between xmas and new year when there’s not much rugby news so we went searching on Instagram for some stories and came up with the idea to do a top 10 Canadian rugby “influencers”. The graph is below, we’ve added some insights that Ai came up with. We originally used Ai to create the list but typical Ai, it got a lot of the data wrong and missed a few people, it’s a useful tool to do some of the grunt work but still needs human oversight to make sure the data is correct and complete. If we forgot someone, mention it in the comments section below.

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Players in the News – December 2025

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Article on Jamie Cudmore from The Times: From Squamish to Luxembourg and Concussion Awareness

The Times based in London ran a recent article on Jamie Cudmore, it covers his fight with concussion awareness, his time at Clermont as a professional rugby player, his formative years in Squamish, his time with Rugby Canada, his current status as coach in France and Luxembourg, and his desire to come back to Canada one day as the men’s coach. It’s worth a read. We came across the article as graphic scans (jpg files) and used the wonders of Ai to transcribe it into text as the original article is behind a paywall. The article is below in graphic format and text.

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Community Rugby in Action – March 2025

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Rugby Approved Turf Field on the Horizon with Partnership between School, Municipality, Rugby Club, Soccer Club and Firefighters

This is a story about building relationships in the community and looking for win-win outcomes that will benefit rugby in BC. It could be a model for other clubs to follow to build more rugby approved turf fields in the community, something that is much needed as February’s match cancellations reminded us.

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MacDowell Rugby Academy – January 2025

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Interview with Robin MacDowell on the MacDowell Academy and Release of the MacDowell Performance App

BCRN: Hi Robin, I saw you released a new training app called MacDowell Performance, it’s powered by Athlete Health First. Before we get into the app let’s talk about Athlete Health First, I understand there’s an interesting history there with the company and the founder.

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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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A Player’s Perspective: Canada to NZ – Part 5

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From Canada to New Zealand – Playing Rugby Abroad in Taranaki Part 5: Balancing Life While Travelling Abroad

by Noah Bain

Kia ora and thanks again for tuning in to BCRN for my 5th article of this series. It has already been almost 3 months and time has just flown by; I can’t believe it. Club season is over, and we are transitioning into representative rugby. I want to say congratulations to my fellow Canadian, (who you can get to know more about in Article 3) Callum Botchar, and his NPOB squad for winning the club championship. Hard work pays off buddy! All the best to you, and my other fellow Taranaki comrade, Izzak Kelly, on your trip with the senior men to Tonga. This article, I will be taking a different approach from the rugby recaps and dive a bit deeper into balancing life and rugby while travelling abroad.

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A Player’s Perspective: Canada to NZ – Part 4

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From Canada to New Zealand – Playing Rugby Abroad in Taranaki Part 4: Club Season Winds Down; Regional Competition on the Horizon

by Noah Bain

Kia ora and thanks for tuning into BCRN! My name is Noah Bain, in case you’re new here, and this is my 4th article documenting my experience as a Canadian playing rugby for Spotswood United in New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand. I wish I had some good news in regards to us getting a win, following up on my last post, but sadly, I do not. The Chiefs lost to the Crusaders, and Spotty lost again. It has been a challenging season mixed with growth and rewards, as I continue to keep learning much about myself and about this wonderful game.

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A Player’s Perspective: Canada to NZ – Part 3

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From Canada to New Zealand – Playing Rugby Abroad in Taranaki Part 3: Noah Interviews Callum Botchar

by Noah Bain

Hello again, and thanks for tuning in to BCRN. Congrats to those named for the BC Bears squads and good luck in your comps this summer. I am excited to watch from afar! Another congrats to the many of those being named to PR 7’s squads. That is huge accomplishment and is sure to be an action packed few weeks of competition with many Canadians going. Lots of North American Rugby to look forward to this summer, exciting times! Moving forward, this article is going to be formatted a little differently than previous ones.

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A Player’s Perspective: Canada to NZ – Part 2

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From Canada to New Zealand: Playing Rugby Abroad in Taranaki Part 2

[ed. Noah will send updates every 2 weeks so check back to read the complete series.]

by Noah Bain

Hello, if you’ve made it back! Noah here again, and thanks for tuning in to BC Rugby News.

I first off want to say congratulations to the Canadian 7’s Men who avoided relegation in London this past weekend. It was by no means an easy task and you made a lot of people, including myself, extremely proud to be Canadian. Every one of you played with so much heart. It’s evident that we are making progress compared to our earlier performances this year, and I’m thrilled to watch the boys in August at the Olympic Qualifiers in Langford. Make sure to get out and support!

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