A game for everyone: how rugby is growing its roots in Canada | Canada Voices

The first time Steve Park played full-contact rugby was in the ninth grade. Fighting through a scrum for the ball, getting tackled, running full out for the end zone – every aspect of the game resonated with him. Thirty-three years later, he’s still playing the rough-and-tumble sport he loves.

“To me, rugby is one of the ultimate team sports, where you really need to be part of a group to succeed. It’s about teamwork, friendship and community. So I just never left.”

Park is a member of the Oshawa Vikings Rugby Club in Oshawa, Ont., where he’s played and coached since the mid-1990s. The Vikings are among the largest rugby clubs in Canada, with over 700 members of all ages, genders, skill levels and abilities.

Rugby resembles American football, but the ball, gear (or the lack thereof), scoring and variations on the rules means that it’s actually quite different.

Teams try to place an oval ball in each other’s end zones, which results in scoring a ‘try’ worth five points. Kicking the ball through the goalposts for a conversion is worth two points, and a penalty kick or drop goal through the posts is worth three points. Players can kick the ball forward, but pass it only sideways and backward.

A full team requires 15 players, but an alternate version has just seven per side, known as rugby sevens or just sevens. At a recent sevens tournament in Jasper, Alta., Park played with friends old and new. “The vibe at the tournament was very friendly, especially in the masters division,” he says. Players embraced the fun of it all, wearing caps with kitty ears and creating jokey jerseys for the tournament.

“There has been a rising global interest in rugby of all types, and sevens has been a great vehicle for that because it’s an easy-to-understand, fast-action tournament format,” says Gareth Rees, Rugby Canada’s director of Strategic Partnerships, and former captain of Canada’s national men’s team.

Rugby sevens was added to the Olympics in 2016, and at the 2024 Paris Games the Canadian women’s team won silver. Rees says he has seen an uptick in excitement and interest surrounding sevens, especially from women and girls after the Olympics.

“There’s been huge growth in the women’s game in Canada the last decade. More young families are seeing sevens on television, and seeing the women winning medals,” he says.

Rees points to the popularity of the Vancouver SVNS tournament, which is part of the World Rugby Sevens Series. “We’ve seen totally different, new people connect with the game through that event.”

The Vancouver SVNS tournament is a party. Fans wear costumes, hoist flags and sing anthems. “It’s really special,” says Rees. The 2025 event in February saw 56,000 fans converge downtown at BC Place.

One of rugby’s appeals is that it welcomes a variety of athletic abilities, body types and skill sets. “It is truly inclusive. There’s a place for all shapes and sizes. You find people that didn’t maybe have a place to play sports, who find a home with rugby,” Rees says.

Rugby Canada has been investing in the sport at all levels with grants offered to support the growth of local clubs. In 2024, 22 clubs received grants to boost diversity, equality and accessibility, with an emphasis on recruiting new Canadians, Indigenous players, women and girls.

One club on that list is the Toronto Rainbow Griffins, which play sevens. “We really focus on bringing queer people who may not necessarily have had a great time in sports, and just people who are looking for an inclusive space to be able to play,” says Ian Royer, the club’s co-founder. “We ended up becoming also sort of an advocacy group for inclusion.”

The Rainbow Griffins don’t ask questions about gender, so have several gender non-conforming people. Royer says the club community has grown beyond simply a place to try rugby to become a safe space.

“We found people falling in love with their body while also really embracing sports, and that’s really what the club is about.”