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2011 Canadian Rugby Championship

I must say, the Canada Rugby Championship Website is quite good.

But what happened to the Americas Rugby Championship Site?

Anyways... Going thru last years CRC.. It seems like each match got crowds around 1500 in attendance.. Better then the Italian Eccelenza comp..

Do you canadians expect the popularity of the CRC to raise slightly this year?

Also.. is the CBC the National TV Station of Canada? I heard they showed the final live on CBC last year. Hope they do it again.
 
Ah fantastic. I've been looking forward to this competition since I found out about it, a whole six weeks ago. Really can't wait to see it. Thanks for the link and keep them coming!!
 
The Rock played Salta today in pre-season action and lost a tight match 16-13. I only found out about the game a little late I apologize for not getting a link up for that one, I was working while it was going on. Here is the recap http://www.rugbycanada.ca/leagues/newsletter.cfm?clientID=3817&leagueID=0&page=53081

Kovana You are right the CBC is our publicly funded channel I really hope they will carry a game or two this year it will really help the exposure of the competition and crowds are slowly increasing. There is no final game this year it is merely a round robin format due to the RWC shortening the schedule.

The regular season won't get started for a little while, but there will be some more pre season games going on before then.
 
Hopefully they can also post some pics of the matches.

Thanks Guy..

Also is Dean Blanks any good at Flyhalf?
 
Hopefully they can also post some pics of the matches.

Thanks Guy..

Also is Dean Blanks any good at Flyhalf?

I like him had a cheeky drop goal against Canada selects last week, Rock are a good team they play really well together everyone knows their role.An excellent mix of some young raw talent like Ciaran Hearn and grizzled vets like Morgan Williams.
 
Is Ciaran Hearn that young lad that Toured last year to Europe with the Canucks?
 
Yes he had a good tour but he played even better last year vs. France in the Churchill Cup, he is once again on the Churchill Cup team this year, he is used for long distance penalties as well he has played quite a bit of 7's rugby truly a diamond in the rough for Canada. His long kicks against France should be here.
 
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When is the next game which we could catch live? When does the proper season start?
 
When is the next game which we could catch live? When does the proper season start?

According to the website the next game is on the 30th of July when the Rock face the BC Bears at home. I'm not one hundred percent certain if this is correct though. :huh:

Little Guy, I take it the game is quite popular in British Colombia, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Does the game struggle in places like Ontario, Quebec and central provinces such as Alberta and Manitoba?
 
According to the website the next game is on the 30th of July when the Rock face the BC Bears at home. I'm not one hundred percent certain if this is correct though. :huh:

Little Guy, I take it the game is quite popular in British Colombia, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Does the game struggle in places like Ontario, Quebec and central provinces such as Alberta and Manitoba?

The game is quite popular in Southern Ontario, many of the National team games are played here and draw well there is a good player base, the game is also growing in the Prairies to an extent. Quebec though would certianly have the smallest per capita player base, It's rare that any more than one player on the Men's team is from Quebec and often there isn't even one.
 
The game is quite popular in Southern Ontario, many of the National team games are played here and draw well there is a good player base, the game is also growing in the Prairies to an extent. Quebec though would certianly have the smallest per capita player base, It's rare that any more than one player on the Men's team is from Quebec and often there isn't even one.

Which is a big problem. Quebec has a population of what, 8 million? If Rugby Canada could get the club system in Quebec up to the level of Ontario or British Columbia it would be a massive gain for the national team's prospects. It's always worried me that nearly 1/4th of Canada's population is practically 100% out of the rugby loop.
 
Rugby in Quebec is actually fairly popular... the problem is it is limited to Montreal and to a larger extent the english speaking community within Quebec. After all Montreal Barbarians, Wanderers, St Anne de Bellevue, Montreal Irish and Beaconsfield are some of the oldest rugby clubs in Canada; however, they fail to draw French speakers to the clubs and are mostly filled with english from the eastern townships. Also hurting Quebec is the fact that rugby is not played in public schools and is only played in english private schools and cegeps such as John Abbott and Dawson College. Quebecois love Canadian Football and rugby is seen as a game for elitist english folk. Their are no francophone universities fielding teams either.
 
Rugby in Quebec is actually fairly popular... the problem is it is limited to Montreal and to a larger extent the english speaking community within Quebec. After all Montreal Barbarians, Wanderers, St Anne de Bellevue, Montreal Irish and Beaconsfield are some of the oldest rugby clubs in Canada; however, they fail to draw French speakers to the clubs and are mostly filled with english from the eastern townships. Also hurting Quebec is the fact that rugby is not played in public schools and is only played in english private schools and cegeps such as John Abbott and Dawson College. Quebecois love Canadian Football and rugby is seen as a game for elitist english folk. Their are no francophone universities fielding teams either.

With the proportion of English speakers decreasing especially outside of the Montreal area, this news is indeed dissapointing for rugby in Quebec, but I think the points about the gridiron football are key. The Alouettes have one of the best fanbases in the country and the unversity football teams are great draws when compared to many other schools in Canada.

Not to delve into anything too political or social but there are many differences between Quebec and the rest of the country beyond just language, which those not from Canada may not realize exist. Often something that is popular in one part will have virtually no following in another.
 
Rugby in Quebec is actually fairly popular... the problem is it is limited to Montreal and to a larger extent the english speaking community within Quebec. After all Montreal Barbarians, Wanderers, St Anne de Bellevue, Montreal Irish and Beaconsfield are some of the oldest rugby clubs in Canada; however, they fail to draw French speakers to the clubs and are mostly filled with english from the eastern townships. Also hurting Quebec is the fact that rugby is not played in public schools and is only played in english private schools and cegeps such as John Abbott and Dawson College. Quebecois love Canadian Football and rugby is seen as a game for elitist english folk. Their are no francophone universities fielding teams either.

Perhaps some games scheduled in Quebec between the Canadian national side, and a French side such as France A, might be a way to draw the interests of French speaking Canadians in the area.

I believe that the US are also looking at regular domestic seven's competitions - if Rugby Canada could maybe get involved with these tournaments, and spread the word that Sevens is an Olympic sport in 2016, it may increase the player numbers all over Canada, with the numbers playing Sevens hopefully spilling over to the Fifteens game
 
Interesting thread. Canada is miles away from any kind of real professional rugby. I'm not sure who posted it but someone said that the CRC is a semi-professional league, I wish it was. I'm not really sure where you are getting that information. I know several players on a couple different teams personally and none are paid directly for playing in the CRC. The objective is to be seen by national selectors and go from there. Rugby Canada has a program through Sport Canada that funds elite level players, all of whom play in the CRC. This is the same program that funds our olympic athletes. This program funds 22 players to the tune of $1500 per month. This allows them to train full time and gives them access to PISE (Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence). The vast majority of players in the CRC play for nothing except the experience and the opportunity to be seen by national selectors.

Internationally based players, those players under contract to professional clubs in the UK or France, (i.e. Cudmore, Van der Merwe, Tkachuk, Carpenter et al.) do not come home to play in the CRC. The only overseas players coming home to the CRC are those players that are playing for the North Wales developmental team "RGC 1404" now known as WRU North Wales Senior Academy XV. Aproximately 9 Canadians are on that that squad as part of joint venture by the CRU and the WRU to help develop rugby in North Wales and give aspiring Canadian players an opportunity to play at a higher level than they would get with their local clubs in BC, Ontario or New Foundland. This program is very controversial in Canada. Many people feel that shipping our best and brightest young players away to North Wales for half a year each year is counter productive to expanding the game locally. My personal opinion is it is good short term strategy but will never produce the results that Canada needs to sustain or improve our position internationally.

Could the CRC morph into a true semi-professional league? I hope so as that is our only hope of keeping up with the countries that are fully professional like Italy, Japan and Scotland. The framework is there, now all we need is the finances to get it up and running and some visionary leadership to bring the various stakeholders together to make it happen. My fear is that the visionary leadership is the part that will ultimately be missing.
 
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Just some added thoughts:

Canada and USA do most of their development through schools, this is where rugby is lacking as many schools do not care about rugby or see it as a good Spring time option for Canadian/American Football players to stay in shape. This is tied closely to the fact that you cannot obtain a good scholarship, if they even exist to University by playing rugby. These scholarships are what drive sports in North America.

The CIS (Canadian interuniversity sport committee) has talked about starting up a CIS Rugby XV's tournament, it would be very similar to the CRC in the fact that only one team would come from the East Coast (Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfound Land, and others), two from Ontario (I think), one from the Prairies, and then two from BC (UBC and Victory). The issue has been funds, and timing as the tournament would have to be played in mid to late November which is when the Examination period starts for all universities.

They have also started to set up a 7's tournament for Universities. This I believe will be under full swing in the next year or so as it is a great way for them to bread the Canadian 7's team and they know it. It is also can be cost effective and timing is not a real issue as it can be played in the winter in BC.

As for the CRC and expansion, I have two thoughts:

1. Canada and the States have a very strong tradition of creating good Professional sports leagues (NHL, NFL, MLB, NBA, even MLS on a much smaller scale). So, with this in mind new games have to start to build up a following (Game attendance) because they have no way of getting lucrative TV contracts, when they have to compete with the above. So, it is much slower and harder to grow the sport. Canada is doing an ok job, but I have to admit that USA has really started pushing hard. They realized that 7's is something completely different and provides great atmosphere, the Las Vegas tournament is gaining great following.

2. Canada needs to extend the CRC to the states. Canada is 1/10 the size of the States and adding more teams to our league would only dilute funds and cause more issues, they need to look to the states to provide more competition and lower travel fees. As a point to the Europeans about travel, going from Newfoundland to BC is around an 8 hour flight!
 

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