Gee-Gees men’s rugby falls in national quarter-finals, dreams of official U Sports status

By Dan Plouffe

The host University of Ottawa Gee-Gees lost their shot at a Canadian University Men’s Rugby Championship title Wednesday evening with their quarter-final defeat, but the team and the sport’s aspirations run higher than winning a national crown.

Men’s rugby would like to join the U Sports family. Canadian university men’s rugby currently operates outside of the U Sports umbrella – historically because football provides so many opportunities for male athletes that U Sports runs a pair of women-only sports (rugby and field hockey) to keep gender numbers even.

But Canadian university men’s rugby teams have a lengthy history in many cases – the Gee-Gees are younger than most, having only joined the Quebec RSEQ league in 2018 – as do conference championships, which have been staged across the country for decades and for just over a century in Ontario.

Backed primarily by the Canadian Rugby Foundation, the first CUMRC nationals were held in 2017, and now the sport has submitted an application to have it added to the U Sports roster.

There is no set timeline on when that might happen, but it will be up to governing bodies at U Sports as well as Rugby Canada to grant approval.

“I’m sure it would help our national team, because then we would have proper pipelines,” highlights Gee-Gees head coach James Flemming. “We’ve seen the results with the women’s team. They have U Sports, and they’ve been chipping away over the years, and now we have Olympic silver medallists, and our women are ranked second in the world (for 15s).”

Flemming is himself a past Gee-Gees player and was a teammate of current Team Canada sevens player Elias Hancock. Creating a true, logical pathway to the top levels of the sport would be one benefit, Flemming notes, along with enhancing experiences and opportunities for players with support from paid coaches and staff, and improved access to training facilities.

“When you think about what the sport can do for people, we’re in the business of growing men here,” adds Flemming, whose Gee-Gees feature a 62-player roster. “It’s great to build a great rugby player, but really, our job as coaches is to build better people.

“A gentleman’s sport like rugby really embodies that culture and values it so much. There’s not really a better avenue in men’s sports, in my opinion.”

The team atmosphere and camaraderie were the driving forces that inspired team captain Jamie Armstrong to return to the Gee-Gees this season even though he’d already completed his economics degree, along with the chance to play in the Canadian championships at home.

“I love this team,” underlines the Quebec conference player of the year and national back of the year. “All my best friends play here, and that’s really why I play.”

Armstrong scored uOttawa’s first try of their national quarter-final matchup with the Ontario conference-champion Guelph Gryphons. The Gee-Gees’ player of the game escaped the clutch of a pair of Gryphons and then faked his way past another to dash down a third of the field and bring uOttawa within nine points of Guelph in the 17th minute.

Evan Roy plowed past the goal line and his brother Glenn added the conversion to give the Gee-Gees a bit of life in the second half, but the Guelph attack proved far superior overall in the 42-12 contest.

“We thought we had a lot more in us, but we just didn’t execute. And credit to them – every time we made a mistake, they scored,” recounts Armstrong, who nevertheless felt “really grateful” to get to play in a national championship on home turf.

“It was awesome,” adds the Ottawa Irish and Sacred Heart Huskies product. “Proud of all the supporters that came out. There was a good turnout. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make it a closer match, but it feels great to be hosting for sure.”

Flemming, who teaches at Immaculata High School and coaches the Ashbury College Colts, was pleased to see many of his younger players in the stands to take in the tournament.

“It’s always good to see them out, and I mean, they’re looking in the mirror ultimately, because that’s going to be them in the future,” indicates Flemming, who has roughly two-thirds of his roster made up of players from Ottawa.

“We take a lot of pride in that,” he signals. “It’s always special in sport when you can have local guys playing for the home team. It gives the community something to rally behind and be proud of.”

The Gee-Gees will play two more matches on the consolation side of the bracket at the championships on Friday and Sunday. The 2023 RSEQ champions still have a chance to record a program-best finish after placing seventh in their nationals debut last season.

The Gee-Gees have solidified their place among the country’s best men’s rugby programs with their repeat appearance at the Canadians, as well as their close 19-14 defeat to Quebec champions École de technologie supérieure of Montreal, which advanced to the semi-finals alongside UBC, Queen’s and Guelph.

“A lot of hard work, in short,” Flemming says of the team’s not-so-secret recipe for success. “Ultimately it’s just an investment in the culture and buying into who we want to be, and then just chipping away at the various things that it takes to build a high-performance program, whether that be strength and conditioning, the way we train, how many times a week we train, putting in extra work, and the stuff on the chalkboard.

“I know it all sounds token, but that’s the trick.”