Rugby union () is a moderately popular sport in Canada. It is a strong participation sport, particularly in hotspots like British Columbia, Atlantic Canada (particularly in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland), Quebec, and Ontario. However, it does not attract the same level of spectator support yet, possibly due to the CFL's success as the dominant football code in the country. Rugby Canada is the administrative body for rugby union in Canada. Each province also has its own union.
As of 2024 Canada has over 12,000 seniors and over 21,000 junior and minor players throughout the country. The Rugby Canada National Junior Championship for under-20 players is organised solely within Canada by Rugby Canada.
Canada is classified by World Rugby (WR) as a tier two rugby nation. Tier two nations do not have a full-time professional domestic structure in place, but they are considered by WR to be the most promising countries in which to expand the sport. The Canadian national men's side have competed in every Rugby World Cup to date, aside from the 2023 Rugby World Cup. The 1991 tournament was their most successful, as they reached the quarterfinals.
Canada's climate is a potential barrier to participation as many grounds are under snow or ice for significant portions of the year, leading to a split season.Jones (1976), p21 Canada has long been a regional power in Rugby Americas North, albeit in one of the sport's weaker regions in which there is no tier I nation.
Popularity
The sport is played across Canada, with clubs even in isolated regions such as Yukon. It is popular in Ontario, Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland in British Columbia, and Newfoundland, where rugby is considered to be the most popular summer sport. It is also popular in Prince Edward Island. As of 2024 the island province boasts the highest number of senior players per capita with 5.9 per 10,000 individuals edging out British Columbia at 5.7 per 10,000. As of 2024 Rugby Ontario has the most registered players with 14,291, followed by BC Rugby with 8,998, and Rugby Quebec with 3,915.
Rugby in British Columbia has a strong international flavour. The University of British Columbia played a regular series against the University of California. Representative BC sides have made tours to Japan and England.
Up until just after the Second World War, rugby union was very popular on the west and east coasts. Despite increasing interest in the traditionally Canadian football strongholds of Quebec and Ontario, rugby union weakened in its western and eastern strongholds, particularly the latter. Despite its battle for survival, rugby has managed to maintain a presence in all parts of Canada. Rugby in the Central Provinces has been bolstered partially by immigration from other Commonwealth Countries.
International rugby matches in Canada have seen increasing attendance figures. 20,396 fans came out to BMO Field in Toronto in June 2013 to watch Canada Men take on Ireland, a new attendance record for Canada.Rugby Mag, Ireland Defeats Canada on Big Night for Canadian Rugby, June 17, 2013, http://www.rugbymag.com/men/8400-ireland-defeats-canada-on-big-night-for-canadian-rugby.html Four years later 29,480 watched Canada take on the Maori All Blacks in Vancouver.
History
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 played in Canada from 1823 onwards, in east Canadian towns such as Halifax, Montreal and Toronto.The Canadian Encyclopedia (1999, ), p2050
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.
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. By the late 19th century, the game was popular in Vancouver on the west coast. Early Canadian rugby clubs included the following: Montreal FC, founded 1868. Halifax Tars, founded 1869. Winnipeg FC, founded 1879 Vancouver RFC, founded 1889.
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.Bath p64Jones (1976), p18 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."
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. Despite such encroachments, rugby remained popular in some parts of Canada, notably British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Ontario, particularly around Toronto.
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.
As early as 1902, a Canadian Men's XV toured the British Isles. And in 1908, the British Columbia rugby union team travelled to California to play the All Blacks.
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 Men's 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. The Rugby Union of Canada was formed in 1929, which was followed by a men's 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.Jones, Encyclopedia of Rugby Football. (1966), p20
In 1958, the Carling Cup was set up, which was won by British Columbia, but which lay dormant between 1959 and 1966. British Columbia retained the cup until Ontario won it in 1971.
Canada men 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 Men's 1991 Rugby World Cup, in which they beat Romania and Fiji, and were narrowly beaten by France, reaching the quarterfinals. In 1992, they compounded their success by beating Wales 26–24.
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. 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.
Rugby and Canadian football
Confusingly, in Canada, Canadian football has also frequently been referred to as "rugby football",Rugby football in Encyclopedia Canadiana, p110. 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. 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". Canadian football is in fact a descendant of the rugby code."Rugby Union and Rugby League" in Encyclopedia Canadiana, p113.Encarta (1997)
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.
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.
International competition 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).