Ontario Blues
| File:OntarioBlues BlueFont.png Logo | ||
| Full name | Ontario Blues Rugby Football Club | |
|---|---|---|
| Union | Rugby Canada | |
| Founded | 2009 | |
| Location | Toronto, Ontario | |
| Ground(s) | Fletcher's Fields (Capacity: 3,000) | |
| League(s) | Canadian Rugby Championship | |
| ||
| Official website | ||
| www | ||
The Ontario Blues are the senior men's representative rugby team for Ontario. They were founded in 2009 to compete in the Americas Rugby Championship against other representative teams from Canada, Argentina, and the United States. In their inaugural season, the Blues suffered narrow losses against British Columbia and the Wolf Pack before defeating the Rock to advance to the Canadian Final. The Blues would again lose to BC, but defeated the U.S. Selects in the bronze medal match.
In 2010, Rugby Canada changed the format of the Canadian competition of the ARC, introducing the CRC. The four Canadian teams which competed in the ARC stayed the same, but now played in the CRC, with a Canadian Selects team being chosen from CRC players, and that selects team going on to represent Canada at the ARC. The Blues went on to win four straight Canadian Rugby Championships from 2011 to 2014 during a stretch where they were 19 wins and one loss over three seasons. Most recently, The Blues won the Canadian Rugby Championship in 2016.
Teams
In 2017, Rugby Ontario announced that their entire provincial rugby program would be branded under the name "Ontario Blues", replacing the "Ontario Storm" name which had been used for the women's team. The Ontario Blues name now encompasses all provincial representative teams of Rugby Ontario. This includes age-grade competition (U15-U18), development squads (U19 Men's and U20 Women's).
The Ontario Arrows are privately funded elite club, which is closely related to the Blues organization, that is in negotiations to join the professional Major League Rugby for the 2019 season.[1][2][3][4] The club will play exhibition games in 2018 at York Lions Stadium.[5]
Season Records
Americas Rugby Championship
| Season | Position | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Bonus | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 2nd (Round-robin) | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 7 | |
| Canadian final | BC Bears 12 – 8 Ontario Blues | |||||||
Canadian Rugby Championship
| Season | Position | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Bonus | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 3rd | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| 2011 | 1st | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 20 |
| 2012 | 1st | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 20 |
| 2013 | 1st | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 23 |
| 2014 | 1st | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 24 |
| 2015 | 2nd | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 2016 | 1st | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 14 |
| 2017 | 2nd | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 13 |
Honours
Current squad
Squad for the 2017 Canadian Rugby Championship season.
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Forwards
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Backs
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Notable players
Canada
The following players have represented Canada at full international level.
Column-generating template families
The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a <div>...</div> open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting.
| Type | Family | Handles wiki
table code?† |
Responsive/ Mobile suited |
Start template | Column divider | End template |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Float | "col-float" | Yes | Yes | {{col-float}} | {{col-float-break}} | {{col-float-end}} |
| "columns-start" | Yes | Yes | {{columns-start}} | {{column}} | {{columns-end}} | |
| Columns | "div col" | Yes | Yes | {{div col}} | – | {{div col end}} |
| "columns-list" | No | Yes | {{columns-list}} (wraps div col) | – | – | |
| Flexbox | "flex columns" | No | Yes | {{flex columns}} | – | – |
| Table | "col" | Yes | No | {{col-begin}}, {{col-begin-fixed}} or {{col-begin-small}} |
{{col-break}} or {{col-2}} .. {{col-5}} |
{{col-end}} |
† Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.
Games played against international opposition
| Year | Date | Opponent | Result | Score | Tour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 22 August |  Midwest Thunderbirds
|
Win | 38-5 | Pre-season exhibition |
| 2009 | 17 October | USA Selects
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Win | 27-24 | 2009 ARC Bronze medal match |
| 2010 | 8 June |  England Counties
|
Loss | 32-26 | 2010 Tour of Canada |
| 2010 | 10 July | Midwest Thunderbirds
|
Win | 38-5 | Pre-season exhibition |
| 2012 | 5 May |  Chile
|
Loss | 19-17 | Ontario Blues 2012 South American Tour |
| 2012 | 8 May |  Salta Province
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Win | 32-26 | Ontario Blues 2012 South American Tour |
| 2012 | 13 May |  Uruguay
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Win | 27-16 | Ontario Blues 2012 South American Tour |
| 2013 | 4 May | New York Athletic Club RFC
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Win | 38-23 | Pre-season exhibition |
| 2013 | 23 August | Life University
|
Win | 36-20 | Pre-season exhibition |
| 2016 | 11 June | England Counties
|
Loss | 73-0 | 2016 Tour of Canada |
| 2016 | 29 August |  Cork Constitution
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Win | 12-10 | 2016 Tour of Canada |
| 2017 | 29 April | Old Blue RFC
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Win | 43-31 | Pre-season exhibition |
| 2017 | 20 May | Glendale Raptors
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Win | 43-25 | Pre-season exhibition |
External links
- ^ "New York and Ontario in Major League Rugby talks". 2017-11-13. Retrieved 2017-11-19.
- ^ "Ontario Arrows to launch Elite Rugby Team in September". 2017-08-25. Retrieved 2017-09-20.
- ^ Davidson, Neil (2017-09-08). "Ontario Arrows take first step toward becoming pro rugby outfit". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2017-09-20.
- ^ "MLR reveals Finals Locations and Expansion Plans". 2018-03-07. Retrieved 2018-03-31.
- ^ "ONTARIO ARROWS ANNOUNCE YORK UNIVERSITY AS 2018 HOME VENUE". Rugby Canada. 2018-03-06. Retrieved 2018-03-31.