Four Bow Valley Rugby Club teams are gearing up for Calgary Rugby Union (CRU) playoffs this weekend.
The Cochrane-based Grizzlies senior men’s squad wrapped their regular season in the CRU men’s recreation league with a 9-1 record and will face the Calgary Canucks in a semi-final on Saturday (Aug. 27) at home at the Mitford Ponds pitch.
Meanwhile, the Grizzlies undefeated U16 boys’ and second-ranked U16 girls' teams will travel to the city for their league finals versus the combined Calgary Canucks/Rams squads, and the U18 boys will face the Calgary Canadian Irish/Saracens combined team at the CRU fields that same day.
Not unlike their Calgary-based competitors, the U16 Bow Valley teams are part of an amalgamation of clubs. The boys' squad is made up of players from Cochrane (Bow Valley Grizzlies), Okotoks (Foothills Lions), Red Deer (Titans), Lethbridge, and Chestermere (Vikings), and the Bow Valley girls play with the Saracens. Likewise, the U18 boys play with the Lions and Titans.
The players from each team joined forces to play games together this season but practiced separately, explained Grizzlies U16 boys' coach Terran Kavanagh.
“Having these guys join up and play together so well even though they’re not practicing together really speaks volumes to their abilities on the rugby pitch,” he said.
The team's dominance is well-documented. Apart from one in five of the rural combined team’s regular-season games, where they knocked the combined Calgary Saints/Canadian Irish by two points, they won each by a margin of at least 35 points.
“There are a few athletes on this team that could be considered top-level players in western Canada,” said Kavanagh, who attributes much of the U16 boys’ success to natural skill, but also great coachability.
“I think one of the things that makes these players so great is that they’re just extremely receptive to feedback,” he said. “It’s really easy to coach young men who are willing and able to listen to what their coach is telling them to do.”
Kavanagh, who also plays for and is vice-president of the Grizzlies senior men’s team, coaches for the combined Cochrane High School and Bow Valley High School CobraCats senior boys in the spring. He was previously on the rosters of the Edmonton Pirates, Clansmen and Gold rugby clubs.
Prior to that, he played overseas for the England Lions.
Speaking from extensive experience in the sport of rugby, the local coach said he sees a lot of potential in the boys' U16 squad.
“There’s a lot of talent on this team and I think it’s going to show in the final this weekend,” he said.
Kavanagh also feels confident about the senior men, whom under normal circumstances, he would be playing with on Saturday, in addition to coaching. Two weeks ago, however, he broke his leg in a regular-season match against the Grizzlies’ semi-final foes – the Canucks.
“I find it a bit ironic that we’re playing the team I broke my leg against,” said Kavanagh. “But I think the lads are ready, and as long as we play to our level and not theirs, there’s no doubt in my mind we’re going to win and move on to the next round of playoffs.”
Bow Valley’s senior men’s team is going into the playoffs ranked first in the tournament’s rural pool and will face the second-ranked Canucks from the city pool. The other semi-final will pit the top-ranked team in the city pool with the next best in the rural pool.
The winners from each game will meet in the southern Alberta final Sept. 10 at 12 p.m. at the CRU.
Grizzlies head coach Ty Hawes said he believes the team has what it takes to get to the final.
“The boys are pretty excited to get into playoffs,” he said. “We’ll see how the chips fall, but I think we’ve got a really strong line-up.”
If it doesn’t play in their favour, Hawes said he’ll be happy with the fact the club managed to fit in all their games this year without interruption.
“The biggest highlight this year was just being able to play a full season and get everybody out again after the last couple of years,” he said. “It’s great to be back on the pitch and to be able to meet off the pitch as well.”
Matty Bouchard, who plays for the senior men’s team and coaches the Bow Valley senior women’s team, said he hopes a year of normalcy will attract more players to the club next year. Clubs amalgamating to meet the number of players required to form a team seems to be becoming increasingly common.
As further evidence of that, the club’s senior women’s team was only able to have a season this year by joining forces with their Foothills Lions counterparts. They would have needed at least another 15 players for Bow Valley to have a workable team, according to Bouchard, which would have put them at a roster of about 20.
Despite the odds, the combined Bow Valley/Foothills team finished their regular season on a high note Aug. 13, bagging their first win of four games.
“There’s something to be said for the persistence the team kept,” said Bouchard. “When it looked like we weren’t going to have a season, that’s when the two teams banded together to ensure they could still play and attend scheduled games.”
Between the club’s social media efforts, Try Rugby Days, and mid-winter training session, the coach remains hopeful participation numbers can bounce back next year.
“Across the board in this whole sport, teams have really taken a hit with numbers,” he said. “By next year, I think with things be a touch better now, we should see the numbers that we want.”
