By Brendan Shaughnessy
Mike Parker, the organizer of the National Capital Youth Rugby Festival, points toward the five fields at Twin Elm Rugby Park.
“This is the high point for me,” he smiles. “A whole bunch of boys and girls playing a sport I love – kids of all ages, body sizes and shapes.”
Aside from a Sunday thunderstorm, the July 18-19 Festival was a great success, Parker says. It brought together dozens of teams from around Ontario, as well as seven squads each from Quebec and the United Kingdom.
And yet, it almost never happened. Last December, the park was at risk of shutting down for good. The South Nepean facility needed to raise $40,000 to pay off back taxes and insurance costs. With some crowdfunding and contributions from member clubs, however, Twin Elm was saved from extinction once again, and the 12th-annual Youth Festival could go on.
Though the games were intense, the Youth Festival itself was about fun; officials didn’t keep standings within the round-robin format, and they didn’t hand out trophies either. Many of the 1,000 participants tried out new positions, and coaches tried to give all players as much time on the field as possible.
For the teams from overseas, it was a pleasant change of pace. Tom Walter, a member of the Kirkham team from northwest England, even managed to take in a Redblacks CFL game Saturday night after a day on the fields.
Though Walter was thoroughly confused by Canada’s take on football, he was struck by the friendliness of opposing rugby players throughout the weekend. He admitted the level of competition at Twin Elm was lower than back home, though he said the Canadian teams were “developing.”
An influx of players – particularly young girls – is helping that development process. Ottawa Irish coach Sean Liebich pointed to Kingston’s jump in female players this year as an example.
“It’s a huge step up from last year, when they couldn’t field a team some games,” Liebich highlights, attributing the growth to increasing media coverage of Canadian rugby, as well as the Canadian women’s runner-up result at last summer’s Rugby World Cup.
Twin Elm is now slated to host a number of high-level events this summer, including an Aug. 22 Canadian men’s rugby team exhibition against USA, a B.C. vs Ontario series from July 31-Aug. 3, and the Aug. 19-23 senior women’s, under-18 men’s and women’s, and U16 men’s national championships.