from Paul Horne
Hoping you can help us get the Can back in the Can-Am Sevens. Would love to see the BC teams return to compete for the Can Am Cup. The tourney is the oldest running 7’s event in the Pacific Northwest going back to 1978 and the history shows clubs like UBCOB Ravens, Meralomas and Bayside dominated the competition over the last three decades.
Some good news from the Rugby Network, they’ll stream the Coast to Coast Cup and unlike the U20 series on FloRugby, you won’t have to pay $30 a month to watch it, it’s free of charge. Well done to the Rugby Network and tournament organizers.
There are three Canadian coaches this coming season in the PR7s. DTH is assistant coach for the Headliners men’s team working with head coach Tim Stanfill who used to play for the Seattle team in the BC Premier. Robin MacDowell is the head coach of the Loonies women’s team and his assistant is Saskatchewan’s Brett Kannenberg who is also the assistant coach with the MacDowell Rugby 7s program.
Super Rugby Americas, the redesigned SLAR competition, is set to kick off on February 18th with a North American team in the competition for the first time. The American Raptors out of Glendale, Colorado will compete along with teams from Argentina (2), Uruguay, Chile, Brazil and Paraguay.
World Rugby announced the match official assignments for the men’s Six Nations 2023. The schedule and assignments are listed below.
The PR7s have been going for two years now with four teams, the Loggerheads, Experts, Headliners and Loonies. The Loonies were unofficially partly a Canadian side but now have been given a geographic area of north central USA and renamed the Northern Loonies. The Loggerheads are presented as Southern California and renamed SoCal Loggerheads, the Experts show as central USA and renamed Rocky Mountain Experts and the Headliners as southeast USA and renamed Southern Headliners. The new teams are New York Locals, Texas Team and two unnamed teams from Western Pennsylvania and Northern California.
Round 5 of the Rugby Championship kicks off early Thursday morning on the west coast, 2:40am PT with Australia v NZ. The Argentina v South Africa games is on Saturday at 12pm PT. Both games are streamed live on TSN.
The women’s Rugby League World Cup takes place in the north of England from November 1st to November 19th. The venues are in Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, York and Hull. The dates overlap with the women’s Rugby Union World Cup taking place in New Zealand from October 8th to November 12th.
The Vancouver Island Thunder defeated the Okanagan Coos in the semi-final and then the host Westshore in the final. Westshore had defeated the Marlins, winners of the Kelowna 7s, in the other semi in extra time. The tournament MVP would have to be Grady Bowd, he’s an exceptional talent.
The Kelowna Rugby 7s put on an entertaining event that had both a social and elite component. There were only 3 teams in the Elite division as the touring British side had travel issues according to the live stream commentary. The three teams were BC Bears, San Capri Marlins and UBCOB Ravens. The teams were evenly matched in playing strength although BC went in as favourites based on reputation. The Marlins came out as surprise winners and defeated BC 17-7 in the final.