It's a rugby kind of weekend in Metro Vancouver, with Canada's Men's Sevens team winning the invitational tournament, and team set to play the U.S. in the seventh-place play-off Sunday (Feb. 23) afternoon.
Both Canadian sevens teams had perfect records on the opening day of HSBC SVNS Vancouver Friday (Feb 21), with the women going two-for-two on the first day of the series pool play at BC Place, with the men posting two wins in the men鈥檚 invitational.
In their first game vs. Trinidad and Tobago, Ethan Hager led the way with a hat trick, scoring twice in the first half and once in the second, with Canada leading 29-0 at halftime. The second half started with a quick try from White Rock's own Kyle Tremblay, with Rhys James and Ethan Turner adding tries as well.
Trinidad and Tobago scored twice in the final five minutes, but Canada took the win convincingly 55-12. Tremblay and his teammates then won against Japan; they then beat both teams again on Saturday (Feb. 22) to win the invitational men's contest that ran alongside the series.
Tremblay, who played for the South Surrey-based Bayside Rugby "from Grade 7 all the way up to Grade 12", is an Earl Marriott grad who grew up in South Surrey and White Rock. Now 25 (turning 26 this year), he returned to Bayside Wednesday (Feb. 19), prior to the weekend games, along with men's head coach Sean White and other players.
They met and engaged with high school students aged 13-18 from all over Surrey, South Surrey, White Rock and from as far away as Abbotsford and the Yukon, Tremblay said, guessing they were there on an exchange program, with White running a coach development session with local B.C. coaches at the same time.
"It was really fun to connect with a lot of people that I knew, a lot of coaches that I knew growing up and to connect with new coaches ... a lot of kids were wearing Earl Marriott sweaters and Bayside sweaters, and it was really fun to be able to tell them, you know, 'This is where I grew up.' It was really fun and really special," Tremblay said Thursday (Feb. 20), adding he only got into rugby because his older brother played it.
"(My older brother) started playing rugby at Earl Marriott in Grade 8 and, being a younger brother, I always wanted to be like my older brother. So I decided that I now have to play rugby as well, because he started playing," Tremblay said. "But I found out about eight months later 鈥� near the end of the season 鈥� that he'd actually quit, and I had no idea," he shared with a laugh. "He'd played rugby for about two weeks and then decided that he didn't want to play anymore, but it was too late at that point so I decided I would stick with it 鈥� it was too much fun."
While he currently plays for (Tremblay plays a centre for 15s rugby and the hook position for sevens) and is usually, based out of Langford and Victoria on Vancouver Island, Tremblay said he always enjoys a chance to return home, where he used to deliver Peace Arch News newspapers when he was in elementary school. He and his family usually enjoy walking down to White Rock's waterfront and enjoy a beer or pizza at a local pub with ocean views, he said.
In Saturday (Feb. 22) play, for the second day in a row, Tremblay and the Canadian men's sevens squad scored at least 50 points against Trinidad and Tobago, shutting them out 50-0. Seven different players contributed points, led by two tries each from Jamie Armstrong and James Thiel. Tremblay, Michael Laplaine-Pereira, Ben Greenstein and Morgan Di Nardo got on the board as well, with Brenden Black adding four conversions.
The final match of the tournament for Canada鈥檚 Men鈥檚 Sevens team was a 51-12 win over Japan.
As Canada鈥檚 Women鈥檚 Sevens team prepares to take on the United States shortly before 3 p.m. Sunday (Feb. 23), the men's sevens squad now prepares to head to Cape Town for the first two rounds of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Challenger, which takes place in South Africa on back-to-back weekends starting March 1.
The final travelling roster Monday (Feb. 24).
"That's the ultimate goal, is to make that team," Tremblay said. 'Then we'll be in Cape Town for two weeks 鈥� hopefully, if I make it 鈥� then we go to Krakow, Poland ... the goal is to obviously, make it back to the HSBC Sevens circuit ... and then the ultimate goal is the Olympics."
The top four teams from the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger will secure a spot in the promotion and relegation play-off competition at the HSBC SVNS World Championship, which happens May 3-4 in Los Angeles, Calif., at which four Rugby Sevens 2026 berths are up for grabs.
