VICTORIA – The top-seeded University of Victoria men's rugby team and its brigade of graduating athletes is ready to leave it all on the line this week at the Canadian University Men's Rugby Championship from Nov.30 -Dec. 4, 2022, at UBC's Point Grey campus in Vancouver, BC.

The Vikes 26-man roster boasts a mixture of veteran and up-and-coming talent, with five of its senior athletes suiting up in Vike's jerseys for the last time. Wily veteran's Logan Martin-Feek, Jonas Robinson, Ethan Hager, Denver Fatt and Gabe Casey are hoping to leave their mark and cap off their careers with a championship banner.

The senior crew of Vikes is riddled with talent including 2021 Major League Rugby (MLR) first-round draft pick Martin-Feek, and 2022 first-round pick Hager, who got selected eighth overall to the Dallas Jackals last August, while Fatt and Casey  were selected to the Toronto Arrows in the third round. All four athletes opted instead to play with the Vikes through the university national championships--a testament to the depth of the UVic squad.

Earlier this season, Casey also spent time with Canada's senior men's 15s as a member of the 32-man squad selected for the new Americas Rugby Trophy—a three-country development competition involving Chile, Brazil and Canada.

The Vikes are coming off a silver medal in 2021, where they lost in a snowy final match at Queens to rival UBC Thunderbirds. This season is a different story, with UVic taking home the 2022 Wightman Boot in a 2-1 series victory over UBC and setting themselves up for success as the tournament's top seed.

Head coach Scott Manning, who is in his second year as the Vikes bench boss, says they are a little more prepared for the tournament this time around, having spent the last year with an eye on taking home a national title.

"Knowing how attritional the tournament is and how beat up the athletes get playing three games in five days, I think we're better prepared for how hard that is on the body," said Manning.

"We're used to getting a full week to recover between games, so throughout the premier league season, we've made sure to use more players in order to have more depth for the tournament. We've also got nutrition and recovery protocols in place to help keep us as healthy as possible over the five days."

The tournament will be an excellent opportunity for the team to see a season of hard work and preparation hopefully come to fruition. However the cards fall, it will be the end of an area for the Vikes senior contingent.

"We're losing a lot of rugby experience and senior leadership with this group of guys leaving us following nationals, but that's the natural cycle of any university program—although ideally, it's not such a big group all at once," Manning said.

"January will be a bit of a reset and an opportunity for us to start working with the up-and-coming group of athletes. We've already brought a few first- and second-year guys into our senior leadership team who will take on bigger roles and hopefully turn into our future leaders, which is exciting."

The Rugby Network (TRN) will be the exclusive, official streaming partner of the upcoming 2022 Canadian University Men's Rugby Championship. For more information about TRN, visit www.TheRugbyNetwork.com. For more information about RugbyPass visit www.RugbyPass.com.
 
 

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Broadcast Schedule (All times listed Pacific Standard Time):
 
Wednesday, November 30^th
 
11:00 Quarter Final 1 - UVIC vs Trinity Western
14:00 Quarter Final 2 - ONT 1 vs Memorial
17:00 Quarter Final 3- UBC vs Calgary
19:30 Quarter Final 4 - ONT 2 vs McGill
 
Friday, December 2^nd
 
11:00 Consolation Semi Final 1
14:00 Consolation Semi Final 2
17:00 Championship Semi Final 1
19:30 Championship Semi Final 2
 
Sunday, December 4^th
 
9:00 Consolation Final (7&8)
11:00 Consolation Final (5&6)
13:00 Bronze Medal Game
15:30 Gold Medal Game
To watch the matches
 
Team Rankings:

1. UVIC
2. Guelph
3. UBC
4. Laurier
5. McGill
5. Calgary
6. Memorial
7. TWU

About the Canadian University Men's Rugby Championship:

Founded in 2017, the Canadian University Men's Rugby Championship was created to not only
fill the gap in terms of a national championship with representation from all parts of Canada,
but also has a goal the growth of men's rugby at the university level in both student-athlete
numbers, number of teams, and audience interest and engagement, and deepening the talent
pool for Canada's senior national team.

About The Rugby Network:
 
The Rugby Network (TRN) is a free streaming and digital content network, providing fans with a single destination for all their rugby content needs, including live streaming of Major League Rugby matches, international matches, North American College, Club, and Youth & High School matches, highlights, replays, weekly rugby shows and exclusive behind-the-scenes rugby documentaries. TRN is a collaboration between Major League Rugby and RugbyPass, the world's leading digital rugby publisher. For more information about TRN, visit www.TheRugbyNetwork.com. For more information about RugbyPass visit www.RugbyPass.com.