The Niagara 2022 Canada Summer Games will take place in Ontario’s Niagara region from August 6-21st 2022. Brock University will host the Rugby Sevens leg of the Games from August 6-13th. This will be the inaugural Rugby Sevens competition for the Canada Summer Games and the first-ever appearance of women’s rugby in the Games. Team NL has been training at the High-Performance Unit at the Newfoundland and Labrador Sports Centre and weekly rugby skills sessions, between the COVID-19 interruptions, for the past year and a half.
Rugby Sevens will be among 18 sports featured at the Canada Games, consisting of more than 5,000 athletes and coaches. The 2022 Canada Games will welcome our nation’s next generation of national, international, and Olympic champions as the best young developing athletes from across the nation assemble to compete in Canada’s largest multi-sport event.
One of the oldest sports to be featured at the Niagara 2022 Games, Rugby Sevens has exploded in recent years, partly due to the success of the national Canadian women’s team winning Bronze at the Rio Olympics. Men’s rugby first joined the Canada Summer Games program for back-to-back Games in 1981 and 1985, and after sitting out the 1989 Games, returned from 1993-2009.
Coaches Roxanne Butler and Morgan Lovelle agree, “We know this program stands on the shoulders of our great high school and club programs in the province and much of the credit in developing these athletes is due to these programs and the many volunteer coaches who tirelessly spend hours coaching and developing the athletes, regardless of the weather”. Both further agree, “we have been gifted with some incredible, young athletic women who will now put in the last six-month run preparing for the 2022 Canada Games in Niagara”.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Rugby Union would like to announce the members of Team Newfoundland and Labrador’s ‘Training Squad’ with further selections of the 10-players travelling to the Canada Games to be made in the late Spring.
Team Newfoundland and Labrador:
Alana Lee, Baymen RFC
Caitlin Menchions, Swilers RFC
Cali Dawe, Baymen RFC
Cecilia Martino, Swilers RFC
Claire O’Brien, Swilers RFC
Deidre Ivey, Swilers RFC
Gracie Whalen, Baymen RFC
Hailey Dowling, Swilers RFC
Hannah Blackmore, Dogs RFC
Jessie Penney, Swilers RFC
Jill Baker, Dogs RFC
Kaitlyn Hawco, Dogs RFC
Kaylie Sandbrook, Swilers RFC
Laura McGrath, Dogs RFC
McKenna Davis-Tucker, Swilers RFC
Morgan Stoyles, Swilers RFC
Sarah Mack, Dogs RFC
Sydney Rose, Swilers RFC