The Canadian Rugby Foundation has become a key supporting partner of the TDSSAA Rugby 7’s Championship Series. The series is held by the Toronto District School Board. The Tournament has grown over 8 years to participation levels reaching 35 schools, totaling 70 teams in 5 boys and girls divisions, with more than 1100 athletes. This growth has lead to the recent Fully Sanctioned Sport status of Rugby 7’s in the TDSB.
The goal of the early tournaments was to simply grow the availability and quality of the game in the Toronto region. It has expanded to include much loftier goals of creating a stepping stone for athletes towards national representation as 7’s players for Rugby Canada. The success rates of athletes who have started their 7’s experience in this tournament, making RC programs is starting to raise eyebrows across the country. Add to this the recent successes of Canadian 7’s Rugby teams at the Youth Commonwealth Games and a Gold Medal Pan Am Games performance in Mexico, and you have a massive surge of interest and potential, connected to proven success.
The Canadian Rugby Foundation supports a mandate which dovetails perfectly with the ‘grassroots to highest level potential’ that the Toronto tournaments support.
While the growth of the game in Toronto has been outstanding, the support of the Canadian Rugby Foundation will provide a platform for us to pursue the next level of development. Not only will this support allow us to maintain a level of tournament quality that we have become accustomed to, but it will allow us to further develop coaches, raise Rugby 7’s knowledge, and share best practice with surrounding regions so that we can create a hotbed of high school 7’s across the largest population concentration in Canada.
To learn more about the Canadian Rugby Foundation, please visit their website, www.canadianrugbyfoundation.ca or call 250 386 5350.
