Category Archives: Front Page

In Memory Of

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In Memory of Mark Abercrombie, Longtime Capilano RFC Member and Active Match Official

Sad news in the BC Rugby community to start the year. Long time Capilano Rugby Club member, Mark Abercrombie, passed away over the holiday period. He was an active Match Official, he most recently showed up in the October 4th match assignments. The messages of condolence from the Capilano Rugby Club and the BC Rugby Match Officials Society are posted below. Use the comments section below to share your own remembrance.

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University Rugby Programs

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McGill University Women’s Rugby Program Reaches $55k of $75k Goal in Fundraiser to Reinstate Program

There was a lot of press in November around the McGill University decision to cut 25 sports programs. The McGill University women’s rugby program, which was one of the 25, started an awareness campaign and a fundraising campaign to get the program reinstated. They exceeded their initial goal of $35k and are currently aiming for $75k with $55k currently raised. It reminded me of a similar UBC action in 2014 which included a notice that the UBC women’s rugby program would be cut. The difference is that the UBC process seemed to go through a longer consultation process and at least a couple of reviews. The UBC women’s rugby program is still very much active and they’ve actually won the last two university championships.

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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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Looking Forward to 2026

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A Look at the 2026 Schedule for Canadian National Teams

It’s New Year’s Eve, time to celebrate the past year, you can view our four articles that highlight the past year, January to March, April to June, July to September and October to December. It’s also time to look at 2026. The national women’s XVs will be playing their Pacific Four series in April/May then a new WXV Global in the fall. England will be visiting in October for at least two matches. Canada didn’t host any Pacific Four matches in 2025 so are due to host some in 2026. The men’s national XVs will be part of the Nations Cup and that schedule is already known, 3 July matches at home and 3 away matches in Europe in November. As for 7s the women have already completed 2 tournaments in the 2025/26 season and have their next tournament in Singapore at the end of January. The men are in the SVNS 3 tournament in January, they have to finish top two to continue their season.

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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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2025 in Review – October to December

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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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2025 in Review – July to September

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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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2025 in Review – April to June

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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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2025 in Review – January to March

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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.

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Happy Holidays 2025

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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

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