This wasn’t an outcome anyone predicted. The first time a University outside of BC wins the national title and it’s an engineering school in Montreal, fairly unknown in the Canadian rugby world. ETS is on the rugby map now and they’re hosting the championship next year.
It was the first women’s rugby national title for a BC university and hence the first title for UBC. UVic are silver medalists for the second year in a row. After high scoring matches all week, the final was a defensive contest with only one try scored.
The UBCO Men’s rugby team made the Nationals for the first time, but the team must raise funds to get themselves there, as they are only minimally financially supported by the Athletics department. The trip will cost about $50k and the players will have to pay a portion of that so have reached out to the community in a fundraising effort.
Here is the link on the UBC website to donate to the UBC Okanagan Heat Men’s Rugby Fund
UBC, who have won all but one men’s University titles to date, have qualified as BC #1 already. UBC along with host University of Ottawa are the only teams confirmed at the time of writing. The BC #2 will be decided this weekend when UVic host TWU, UVic winning the first match by +4.
UBC and UVic will be representing Canada West at the University Championships starting next week. UBC claimed the CanWest title with a comprehensive 51-22 over UVic. The match report is appended below.
UBC will host the 2025 U Sports Women’s Rugby Championship, the media release is posted below. The 2024 championships are to be hosted by UPEI in Charlottetown, PEI from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3.
VANCOUVER – Once again it all came down to the final game of the weekend, but this time the UBC Thunderbirds claimed the glory and the top spot ahead of the University of Victoria Vikes at the second Canada West women’s rugby 7s series tournament of the year.
The UVic Vikes fell to Central Washington University 27-22 despite leading 22-17 at the half. UVic had plenty of possession inside the red zone in the second half but couldn’t convert that into points.
UVic won the opening tournament of the 2024 CanWest 7s Series in Edmonton. UBC came second. There will be two more tournaments in the series, the next tournament is at UBC, Feb 10-11.
It wasn’t a result many would have predicted, a 41-7 one-sided match in the final. These two teams met twice in October with the Vikes winning one +5 and the T-Birds winning the other +6. There didn’t appear to be much between the teams.