The University of Guelph became the first Ontario university to claim the men’s national university title when they defeated hosts ETS 18-13 on Sunday. In the Bronze medal match it was UBC over UVic 27-12. UBC had won 5 of the first 6 championships with UVic winning the other, ETS broke the BC dominance last year and Guelph have put their name on the cup this year.
UBC repeat as U SPORTS champions with a last minute win over UVic. UVic went up 3-0 in the first quarter on a penalty kick, UBC scored the first try set up by a strong run by prop Kiki Idowu and finished off by fullback Olivia Saraburu, 7-3 for UBC. UBC added a penalty in the second half to go up 10-3. UVic hit back with a halfback combination try, #9 Justine Blatt Janmaat with the line break and offload to #10 Ella O’Regan, 10-8 for UBC with 20 minutes left. UVic wing Eden Kilgour put UVic ahead with a try outside with 5 minutes left, 13-10 for UVic. UBC scored at the whistle, a try outside by wing Adia Pye, 15-13 UBC to end the match
UVic claimed the Canada West title with another narrow victory over UBC. UBC are current U SPORTS title holders and are hosting the U SPORTS rugby championship which starts later this month. UVic defeated UBC with a come from behind win, trailing by 6 points with 10 minutes remaining, they scored a try at the 74′ mark and made the important conversion to claim the Western title. The match report from CanWest is posted below.
UBC confirmed their #1 ranking as they go 4-0 in the BC University qualifying series, TWU need a massive win next weekend against UVic to qualify for the nationals. Pacific Pride dominate in the Valley with a lopsided win. The Oakville Crusaders Junior program took a double from the Ravens on Friday and Ravens edged CW on Saturday.
There are no Premier games this Thanksgiving Weekend but there are two Premier level matches taking place this weekend plus the Oakville Crusaders Junior Program are on the Island for matches with the Ravens and CW.
Both the men’s and women’s University championship are on the horizon. The women are first with UBC hosting the championship between October 29th and November 2nd. They are defending champions but have been beaten twice by UVic in the CanWest conference. They currently sit in 5th place in the national rankings, UVic are ranked 3rd with Queen’s and Laval sitting at #1 and #2.
There’s no Premier this weekend as the Kamloops Youth 7s has the attention of the BCRU staff and BC referees. There are however two Coastal Cup matches, one which also counts towards qualification for the National University Championships being held in November. UVic, UBC and TWU play a home and away series with the top 2 teams representing BC at the University Championships. UBC have already won their first match against TWU and this will be UVic’s first qualifier match. The Pride are visiting TWU in the other Coastal Cup match.
Two blowouts this weekend with UBC crushing TWU 76-0 to start their Coastal Cup and men’s University Championship qualification on a strong note and the UVic women continue their unbeaten run in the women’s University Championship qualification with a 74-10 pummeling of the University of Calgary Dinos. The UBC game video is archived below, we’ll post photos of the UVic match later today. There’s also match reports posted below courtesy of Thunderbirds and Vikes media.
The rugby season in BC started this Saturday with a university rivalry, UVic vs UBC. The UBC Thunderbirds are defending national title holders and go into the season as favourites as highlighted by the CanWest preseason coaches poll, listed below. Both teams have some marquee names Piper Logan from the national 7s team is UBC scrum half and Carissa Norsten playing fullback for UVic, also on the national 7s team, was World Rugby Rookie of the Year on the 7s circuit in 2023-24. This weekend it was UVic that prevailed and we have both UBC and UVic match reports posted below. Also check out Alfred_Rugby on Instagram for match photos.
The UBC Thunderbirds finished the final Women’s Rugby 7’s tournament of the year with a 5-0 record to go unbeaten over the 2025 season and win their third straight Canada West championship Saturday afternoon at Willoughby Stadium at the Langley Events Centre in Langley, B.C.
The three BC universities took the top 3 spots in the first tournament of the three tournament CanWest series. The big surprise was TWU edging UVic for second spot as they won the head to head 12-5. UBC were the dominant team in the tournament going undefeated. Adia Pye of UBC was the leading try scorer with 8 tries, scoring at least one try in each of UBC’s matches.