Three multi-sport athletes from Holy Trinity Academy enjoyed a unique opportunity to play for a provincial selects team in the largest amateur rugby tournament south of the 49th parallel.
Holy Trinity Academy (HTA) Grade 12 standouts Ryan Hassler, Peter Hillman and James Read were among the Alberta selects composing the Celtic Barbarians at the Las Vegas Invitational rugby sevens tournament, Feb. 9 -12.
“The Las Vegas invitational was a great tournament with lots of great teams so it was a lot of fun for me to go down to Las Vegas and it was also a big learning experience for me,” Hassler said.
Rugby sevens is played on a field with the same dimensions as 15-man rugby, but consists of only two-seven minute halves compared to the 80-minute affairs in traditional rugby. All three HTA students are relatively new to sevens, with just one tournament appearance to their credit after suiting up for the Barbarians at the Stampede Sevens tournament in the summer. The Barbarians won the U-18 men’s tournament at the Calgary Rugby Union and the team’s head coach Cameron Wilton then brought most of the winning roster down to Las Vegas.
“It was a really good kick start to show us what it was like and when we heard of this Las Vegas sevens tour tournament coming up, we couldn’t let the opportunity pass by,” Read said.
The Celtic Barbarians made it all the way to the final in the 16-team Las Vegas tournament, losing out to the B.C. selects. Heading into the final, Hassler said they were motivated to prove themselves against a province that dominates the national rugby scene.
“We went into that game knowing they were the favourite and we were the underdog. We wanted to show them that Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and other places in Canada have some rugby players too,” Hassler said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t come out with our best effort and they came out with the win, but it was still a fun game for us.”
Given the team’s limited practice sessions in advance of the high school tournament, the Barbarians fared well, Read said.
“I think we did really well seeing as sevens is a relatively new sport to most everybody in Canada,” Read said. “I think we made a really good showing for the amount of time we had to prepare.”
Sevens is earmarked for the more athletic and agile players on the pitch and therefore suited all three of the Barbarian representatives from Okotoks.
“I’m pretty fast so it’s nice to have that extra open space and I just get out on the wing there and used my speed to try and out-run guys,” Hassler said. “It’s a lot of fun in that aspect.”
Read agreed.
“For me it’s a really good game because I enjoy running with the ball and that’s what I do in (15-man rugby) so I just have a lot more field to play with,” he said.
Hillman said he sees a future for himself in rugby sevens.
“It’s one of my long-term goals to get somewhere with sevens, especially now that it’s an Olympic sport,” Hillman said.
Rugby sevens will make its debut at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Hillman’s dreams were made more realistic by the presence of former HTA rugby standout Jeff Hassler on the Canadian national men’s team at the International Rugby Board Rugby Sevens Series stop in Las Vegas, coinciding with the high school invitational.
“I was there with his little brother Ryan (Hassler) and we were both there cheering him on,” Hillman said. “It made it more personal, the trip.”
The younger Hassler savored the experience.
“It was amazing to see (Jeff) score his first ever try on the sevens team for Canada,” Hassler said. “It was incredible just to be able to share the experience of playing sevens together in Las Vegas.”
Jeff Hassler and Canada compete in the Sevens World Series which features nine stops on a tour stretching from Japan to Australia to North America with points in the series accumulated at each stop. Canada upset Australia en route to winning the USA sevens international tournament on Feb. 12. After his first hand experience at the international tournament as both a player and spectator, Ryan Hassler said he would love to follow in his brother’s footsteps.
“I hope I can get there one day and that’s what I strive towards in rugby,” Ryan said.
Read said seeing the world’s best compete in the sevens series was inspirational.
“That would definitely be a dream come true for me, that’s for sure,” Read said of suiting up for the national sevens squad. “That’s kind of what I strived to do; to be the best I can be as the player that I am and hopefully that will take me to where I want to go.”
