Rugby union in Canada

Canadian Rugby Sevens fans at the 2016 Summer Olympics

The sport is played across Canada, with clubs even in places like Yukon. It is most popular on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland in British Columbia on the west coast, and Newfoundland, where rugby is considered to be the most popular summer sport. It is also quite popular in Prince Edward Island, where it is played by far more people than Football, but is less popular than Baseball as a summer sport.

Rugby in British Columbia has had a strong international flavour, with the University of British Columbia playing a regular series against the University of California, and representative BC sides have made tours to Japan and England.[4]

Up until just after the Second World War, rugby union was very popular on the west coast, and the east coast respectively.[4] However, despite increasing interest in the Canadian football strongholds of Quebec and Ontario, rugby union was weakened in its western and eastern strongholds, particularly the latter.[4] Despite its battle for survival, rugby has managed to maintain a presence in all parts of Canada.[4] Rugby in the Central Provinces was reinforced partially by immigration from other Commonwealth Countries.[4]

Rugby in Canada has been experiencing a growing popularity. 20,396 fans came out to BMO Field in Toronto in June 2013 to watch Canada take on Ireland, a new attendance record for Canada.[5]

Toronto Varsity rugby team, champions of Canada, c. 1906

There is a considerable overlap between the early history of rugby in Canada, and the origins of Canadian football.

Early forms of rugby football were being played in Canada from 1823 onwards, in east Canadian towns such as Halifax, Montreal and Toronto.[6]

Rugby football proper in Canada dates back to the 1860s. Introduction of the game and its early growth is usually credited to settlers from Britain and the British army and navy in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Esquimalt, British Columbia.

In 1864 the first recorded game of rugby in Canada took place in Montreal among artillery men. It is most likely that rugby got its start in British Columbia in the late 1860s or early 1870s when brief mentions of "football" appeared in print.

F. Barlow Cumberland and Fred A. Bethune first codified rules for rugby football in Canada, in 1865 at Trinity College, Toronto, and the first proper Canadian game of rugby took place in 1865 when officers of an English regiment played local civilians, mainly from McGill University.[6]

Rugby is also an ancestor of Canadian football, currently its main competitor. A "running game", resembling rugby, was taken up by the Montreal Football Club in Canada in 1868.[7] By the late 19th century, the game was popular in Vancouver on the west coast.[6] Early Canadian rugby clubs included the following:

• Montreal FC, founded 1868.[6]
• Halifax FC, founded 1870.[6]
• Winnipeg FC, founded 1879[6]
• Vancouver RFC, founded 1889.[6]

The first major figure in the introduction of rugby to Canada was Alfred St. George Hamersley of Marlborough, an England international who had played in the first Calcutta Cup match in 1871, and he helped establish the game in British Columbia.[2][8] The game took root there, and as the Canadian Encyclopedia says:

"Vancouver, which, owing to its favourable climate and strong British tradition, became the game's stronghold."[6]

The first recorded game in British Columbia was played on Vancouver Island in 1876, between members of the Royal Navy and the Army. It was played regularly after this in Victoria by local players and sailors on the British ships stationed at Esquimalt.

The first club was formed in 1868. At that time no international agreed set of rules existed and the Rugby Football Union of England would not publish its official set of rules until 1871. Shortly after the game in Montreal, Trinity College, Toronto published the first set of Canadian rugby rules.

The Canada RFU was founded in 1882, and administered Canadian football - after this, Canadian rugby fell back to a provincial level, taking administrative directions directly from the Rugby Football Union in England.[6] Despite such encroachments, rugby remained popular in some parts of Canada, notably British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Ontario, particularly around Toronto.[3]

As Canada's two main languages are English and French, it has long been influenced by not only the Commonwealth, but the French rugby community.[2]

As early as 1902, a Canadian XV toured the British Isles.[6] And in 1908, the British Columbia rugby union team travelled to California to play the All Blacks.[6]

The Vancouver Crusaders RFC, city champions in 1911

There was a brief resurgence in the sport, but that was halted with the onset of World War I. From 1914 to 1919, only in British Columbia and Nova Scotia were there the numbers for semi-regular rugby. In most other areas the game was not played on a regular basis. It has been suggested that some kept rugby alive during the period in an effort to boost morale during the war.

Following World War I, there was an increase in rugby in Canada, as servicemen rejoined their previous clubs. In 1919, a Canadian Services team, the Canadian Expeditionary Force, took part in an Inter-Services Championship played in Great Britain. The Championship consisted of matches played between six service teams from Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, with the final played at Twickenham.[9] The Rugby Union of Canada was formed in 1929, which was followed by a tour of Japan by a Canadian side.

During World War II the sport was only played on a limited basis, with most games being played involving mainly members of the Commonwealth Forces. In 1949, there were only three active provincial unions — British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.

Queen's University RFC from Belfast, toured British Columbia in 1953.[10]

In 1958, the Carling Cup was set up, which was won by British Columbia, but which lay dormant between 1959-66.[6] British Columbia retained the cup until Ontario won it in 1971.[6]

Canada first broke through into the top rank of rugby nations when it beat a touring Scotland side in 1991, and this was followed by an outstanding performance in the 1991 Rugby World Cup, in which they beat Romania and Fiji, and were narrowly beaten by France, reaching the quarterfinals.[2] In 1992, they compounded their success by beating Wales 26-24.[2]

Although it was first introduced into eastern Canada, British Columbia has long been seen as the traditional centre of the Canadian game, and although there have often been as many players in Ontario as BC, there has been a steady drift westward of players.[2] This westward drift has ensured that Canadian rugby now has an outlook to the Pacific Rim, rather than one merely fed by a heritage of largescale British emigration.[2]

Rugby and Canadian football

Main article: Canadian football

An early Canadian football game between the Hamilton Tigers and an unknown Ottawa team, 1910. Note the lack of helmets.

Confusingly, in Canada, Canadian football has also frequently been referred to as "rugby football",[11] and a number of national and provincial bodies were called "Rugby Football Unions" or "Rugby Unions", such as the Ontario Rugby Football Union, Quebec Rugby Football Union.[11] For example, in the Encyclopedia Canadiana, the entry Rugby Football begins "the Canadian development of rugby union or "English rugger" introduced into Canada in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.", but admits later that "the Canadian game is a radical departure from rugby union".[11] Canadian football is in fact a descendant of the rugby code.[4][12]

The first documented gridiron football match was a game played at University College, University of Toronto on November 9, 1861. A football club was formed at the university soon afterwards, although its rules of play at this stage are unclear.

In 1864, at Trinity College, Toronto, F. Barlow Cumberland and Frederick A. Bethune devised rules based on rugby football. However, modern Canadian football is widely regarded as having originated with a game of rugby played in Montreal, in 1865, when British Army officers played local civilians. The game gradually gained a following, and the Montreal Football Club was formed in 1868, the first recorded non-university football club in Canada.

This rugby-football soon became popular at Montreal's McGill University. McGill challenged Harvard University to a game, in 1874. It is through this varsity play that the game now known as American football entered the United States.[13]

Predecessors of the Canadian Football League and the present-day governing body Football Canada include the Canadian Rugby Football Union (CRFU), established 1882, and the Canadian Rugby Union, established 1892. Representatives from the Montreal (Rugby) Football club (now known as the Westmount Rugby Club), the Toronto Rugby Football Club and from the Hamilton Rugby Football Club had meetings in Toronto and Montreal. It was decided that the union would continue to use the English rugby rules, and at the end of the season the winning club of the Quebec Championship would play the Ontario Champion for the Club Championship of the Dominion.

This organization (also known at different times as the Canadian Rugby Union), was the forerunner of the Canadian Football League, as rugby football in Canada evolved into Canadian football. To make matters more confusing the word rugby continued to be applied to Canadian football. It was not until 1967 that the original CRU finally cleared up this confusion by renaming itself the Canadian Amateur Football Association; it adopted its current name of Football Canada in 1986.

Canada is classified by World Rugby (WR) as a tier two rugby nation alongside Fiji, Japan, Romania, Samoa, Tonga and the USA (there are ten tier one rugby nations). In terms of international rugby, Canada has not been so isolated, since European sides touring Australia and New Zealand, and vice versa, would frequently stop off there, in the days before proper long distance jet flight.[2] As early as 1905, Dave Gallaher's "Originals" from New Zealand played there, and a long line of All Blacks sides have played there.[2]

Rugby World Cup

Main article: Canada at the Rugby World Cup

Canada National Rugby Squad, 1987 Rugby World Cup

The Canadian national team have competed in every world cup since the first tournament held in 1987. The team's best result came during the 1991 tournament, held in the United Kingdom, when they reached the quarter finals beating out Fiji and Romania before narrowly losing 19-13 to France in the pool stage then New Zealand in the quarter final.

Canada managed only one win in the 1987 Rugby World Cup (against Tonga). They also managed only a single win in 1995 Rugby World Cup (against Romania) 1999 Rugby World Cup (against Namibia) and the 2003 Rugby World Cup (against Tonga). Canada could only manage a draw in the 2007 Rugby World Cup (against Japan), but in the 2011 Rugby World Cup managed a win (against Tonga) and a draw (against Japan).

The Junior Inter-Provincial Championship was started in 1976, and in 1982, Canada started up a junior national team, which played Welsh Schoolboys in 1983 and 1986, and England Colts in 1985.[6]

Since 2009, the top age-grade competition in the country is the Rugby Canada National Junior Championship, involving under-20 teams. It was established as a replacement for the Super League, and most of the clubs that fielded teams in that league now send under-20 teams to the National Junior Championship.

In 1983, the Western Canada Women's Championship was established.[6]

By 1999, thirty women's clubs were registered in Canada.[6]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rugby union in Canada.

• Rugby Canada
• Canada national rugby union team
• Sports in Canada
• Canada national rugby sevens team
• Canadian Rugby Championship

• Rugby Canada site
• Rugby in Canada Dot Com
• (in French) Archives du Rugby: Canada
• Rugby on the Canadian Encyclopedia

• Bath, Richard (ed.) The Complete Book of Rugby (Seven Oaks Ltd, 1997 ISBN 1-86200-013-1)
• The Canadian Encyclopedia (1999, ISBN 0-7710-2099-6)
• "Canadian Football", in Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 97 Encyclopedia (CD-ROM) 1993–1996 Microsoft Corporation.
• Encyclopedia Canadiana vol. 8. Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal: Grolier of Canada. 1972. ISBN 0-7172-1601-2.
  • "Rugby football" (NB - this article is on Canadian football)
  • "Rugby Union and Rugby League"
• Jones, Encyclopedia of Rugby Football. (1966)
• Jones, J.R. Encyclopedia of Rugby Union Football (Robert Hale, London, 1976 ISBN 0-7091-5394-5)
• Richards, Huw (2007). A Game for Hooligans: The History of Rugby Union. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84596-255-5.