The Lisgar Collegiate Institute boys’ and girls’ rugby teams held practices last week. Jolson Lim, Centretown News A strong Olympic showing is fueling hope among the local rugby community that the sport is set to explode in popularity.
While tens of thousands of Ottawa sports fans may pack major venues for hockey or football, the low-key sport of rugby continues to find a passionate few to cheer on their favourite local squads.
Rugby is still one of those second- or third-tier niche sports in Ottawa, and across Canada, with players and a relatively tiny fanbase getting their fix of scrums, tackles and tries in a virtual vacuum.
But after a successful international showing by the Canadian women this summer in Rio, some locals think things may soon change. The Canadian women’s rugby team not only qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics, but took home the bronze medal — Canada’s first-ever podium finish in Olympic rugby, finally putting the country on the map as an international contender.
LeeAnn Napiorkowski, former national player and current rugby coach, predicts Ottawa will see a substantial rise in interest thanks to the women’s bronze medal win in Brazil.
“There’s a lot more exposure for the women and big funding is definitely going to change the pay-to-play structure,” she said.
Napiorkowski said their local clubs, the Ottawa Beavers and Banshees, have seen a lot more interest — people looking for information particularly after the Olympics.
The Ottawa Beavers and Banshees are senior men’s and women’s teams here in Ottawa, both playing in leagues with teams stretching from Ottawa to Montreal and even Quebec City.
Two years ago, Canada’s women finished second in the Rugby World Cup, but rugby’s Olympic reinstatement made this latest victory resound on a bigger stage much closer to home.
On Sept. 18, the Ottawa Wolves rugby club held an open house at the University of Ottawa. Veterans and newbies were invited to come out, learn some skills and play a friendly game before competition kicks off for teams around the city this fall.
Napiorkowski was there and predicts that the success of Team Canada at the Olympics will be the start of something great for the sevens game in Ottawa and across Canada.
Rugby had been absent from the Olympics since 1924, and its reinstatement focused more on the swifter, high-scoring seven-player game than the conventional fifteen players. Canada’s men’s team failed to qualify for the 2016 Olympics, but the women’s dominance in Rio has etched a place for Canada as a top competitor.
Napiorkowski said that the sport is not only drawing the interest of more men and women, but that rugby is growing particularly well within Canadian high schools.
“It’s one of the fastest growing sports in high school and it’s easy for parents to access because you only need a pair of boots and that’s it,” said Napiorkowski, who coaches at St. Peter Catholic High in Orleans. “Our numbers are getting bigger every year and the league is expanding.”
John Ruff is the women’s coach at Lisgar Collegiate Institute in Centretown. He said because interest in the sport can change year to year, sevens has higher potential to catch on.
“It’s hard to have enough players for 15s, because you usually need about 25 kids,” he said, “but with sevens you have a much smaller team so it’s easier to catch on.”
For Ruff, the ripples of excitement from Rio haven’t yet hit the school system, but several students in the past have gone on to play for the U18 and U20 national teams.
Geoff Ives, a player with the Ottawa Beavers rugby club, said rugby is still “a niche sport,” but he was quick to note that Ottawa is a “remarkable place” for rugby at all levels.
Ives talked about five major clubs here in separate corners of Ottawa, and how they each have junior and senior teams that compete as far away as Montreal and Quebec City.
For the growth of the game in Ottawa, Ives said, the publicity from the women’s “tremendous achievement in Rio” brought a lot of attention to local clubs.
“The highest amount of hits on our website was on that day (the bronze medal game),” Ives said. “And to beat Great Britain for the medal was a great turnabout.”
For players like Ives, the draw to rugby is that it’s inclusive.
“One of the great things about rugby is that there is a spot for every body type,” he said. “Huge, fast, small or slow — there’s always a place for you.”