History of Canadian & German Rugby Tours

German Rugby Team in Town to Face Highlanders on Saturday: A Brief History of Canadian/German Rugby Tours with Tour Programs

With the Vancouver Highlanders hosting the national German team on Saturday, July 20th, at Burnaby, we decided to take a look at some history between German Rugby and Canadian Rugby.

Our main source of historical programs and background is Karl Fix who, according to our knowledge, organized the first Canadian club tour of Germany. It started with Karl trying out for the German team, taking part in the North v South trial match in 1985. Karl is of Bavarian ancestry so would qualify for Germany. His national team aspirations didn’t work out but he made the connections for a tour of his club, the Regina Rogues, to Germany in 1986. The tour program is appended below. Some of the tour players on that 1986 tour are well known to BCRN readers, Ian Hyde-Lay, capped for Canada in 1986, Mike Holmes capped for Canada 1987.

Karl helped arrange for the BC club, Kats, to tour to Germany in 1987. Karl also played for the Kats on that tour. The Kats won all 8 games on tour. In 1988 Germany toured to Canada where they stopped in Regina to play the Rogues and continued on to the west coast. In his book Rugby Football in British Columbia 1876 to 1989, Lewis Madley wrote, “Kats also have the distinction of playing the national team of another country having played Germany at Vancouver on June 25th 1988. They won the game by a score of of 22-15.”

In 1997 when Karl was Vice-President of National Junior Men’s Teams at Rugby Canada he took a U17 team to Germany that went undefeated. That team included players like John Cannon, Matt King, Tyler Wish, Mike Danskin, Scott Franklin, Josh Jackson, Mark Lawson, Jason Verstratten that would go on to play for Canada’s men’s senior team. The Canada U23 team (Pacific Pride coached by David Clark) travelled to Germany in 2003.

Karl talks of other teams that he’s helped arrange tours to Germany for such as Edmonton Clansmen, University of Victoria, West Vancouver High and The Rock. Karl, who founded the Dog River Howlers, a touring team, has taken teams over to Germany on several occasions, the 2012 Howlers U16 team included future senior internationals Theo Sauder and George Barton (tour program appended below). The Howlers went to the Heidelberg youth 7s tournament three times and this year MacDowell Rugby took a boys and girls team to the Heidelberg tournament.

The only official test between Canada and Germany took place in 2018 as part of the RWC 2019 Repechage tournament. Canada won that match 29-10.

So this Saturday’s match Vancouver Highlanders v Germany represents the most recent chapter in a long history of rugby competition between the countries. Tickets for the match can be bought online.

Regina Rogues 1986 Tour