There’s nothing quite like representing your home province in a national tournament held on your home soil, an opportunity afforded to four foothills area rugby players.
The Rugby Canada National Championship Festival, held at the Calgary Rugby Union on Aug. 17-21, involved more than 650 athletes from nine provinces competing in three divisions.
“With these kind of sports, even just participating in it is just an awesome experience,” said Okotokian and Holy Trinity Academy (HTA) ßstudent Peter Hillman, who played for Alberta’s U-18 team. “It was a learning experience, even just as a step to representing the country.”
Fellow Okotokian and HTA student James Read also competed for Alberta’s U-18 team and said it was an honour to represent his province.
“It felt great. The last time (I played for Alberta) I was 14 and it wasn’t quite the same,” Read said. “To do it at the oldest age group was great.”
Alberta’s U-18 men’s team finished with a record of 2-2 in round robin play and recovered from an 86-5 loss to B.C. in the semi-finals to win the bronze medal game 44-20 over Newfoundland-Labrador.
B.C. beat Ontario 38-33 in the final.
“I think overall, with my performance and the guys coming back from a couple tough games with B.C. I thought we played really well,” Read said.
Hillman said he was pleased with Alberta’s performance given the short duration the team had together.
“We’re a really good province, we don’t have the same advantages of the other provinces,” Hillman said. “With B.C. they play all year round. With those advantages I thought we played reasonably well.”
Read agreed. “With the amount of time we were given to prepare, we played really well. I would have liked more time to develop our chemistry,” he said.
Both Hillman and Read missed out on the HTA Knights football trip to San Francisco in order to play for team Alberta.
In U-16 men’s action, Okotokian Jack Hughes represented Team Alberta which struggled to a 1-3 record in the round-robin section of the championships. The U-16 Alberta men’s team beat Saskatchewan 27-7 in the consolation semi-final, but fell to Ontario 1 by a score of 20-3 in the seventh place match. The B.C. U-16 men’s team crushed Newfoundland and Labrador 88-5 in the final to win its second gold medal of the National Championships.
HTA graduate Samantha Westhaver played on Alberta’s U-18 women’s team in Calgary.
The Wildrose province team compiled a solid 3-1 record in round-robin play. Alberta won its consolation semi-final 22-5 over Nova Scotia but came up short against Saskatchewan, losing 20-10 on Aug. 20 and finishing in sixth place.
Ontario Team I prevented a British Columbia sweep by beating the west coast province 34-18 in the U-18 women’s final.
