© Sports the other press Flash Gordon dcsportseditor@yahoo.ca July 2003 iM Photos by Flash Gordon Douglas Rugby Blues not Royals Flash Gordon Sports Editor The organization of rugby in British Columbia is a bit of a shocker to Easterners, who get half a year to play the sport. Over the Rockies, rugby is played in the heat, humidity and freez- ing cold. True dedication is realized when snow flurries hit your face during playoff games. The Lower Mainland’s summer evenings are great for rugby games or practices and whatever shenanigans that arise. It seems ass- backward when the rest of Canada plays league games between May and October and the British Columbia Rugby Union plays league games between September and April. During the BC summer, the only scheduled matches for the area take place for rep- resentative sides of the Fraser Valley Venom or the Vancouver Wave. No one said rugby had to make sense. Considering rugby management con- sists of rugby old boys, the rest of the world doesn't expect a flare for organi- zational skills. Outsiders see the sport of rugby as a cult of barbarians obsessed with rugby, beer, sex, and rugby. The truth hurts sometimes. And sometimes it doesn’t. In the defense of rugby, what team sport isn’t like that? Rugby is a very proud sport, full of tradition and a cul- ture all its own. One of the greatest aspects of the sport is that anyone can walk off the street to play a game. You don't need the excessive padding of football; you don’t need skates; class is optional but beer-drinking skills are mandatory. Rugby players are special breeds of athletes, who are not suited to a quick, fluid sport of basketball. They are more enduring than football players who often share an unfair comparison. In Ruggers men and women spend years of their lives wearing out their bodies as a part of the lemming-like sub-culture. A doctor once told me, “If all I ever treated was rugby players, I could have my own practice.” This is probably true. Rugby players are usual- ly content to patch a wound with duct tape until it’s convenient to visit a physician. An athlete may not be able to collect all the reasons that draw one to play such a harsh sport. Sometimes its better to not ask. Rugby clubs throughout the Lower Mainland can be found around any corner, under any rock and the most unlikely/unmention- able places. Whether you live in New Westminster or Surrey or Vancouver, there are bound to be rugby clubs near you. Gert Van Niekerk is one of a few men who can say he gave birth to something. The Douglas Rugby Club Blues is Gert’s baby - a 32-year-old baby. Holed up in a shack on Quebec Street, in New Westminster the Douglas Rugby Club Blues survive for another year. There have been many consecutive incarna- tions of the rugby club or college team since Gert Van Niekerk put a sign up at the college advertising for the new Douglas College team in 1971. What we have now is not a college team though the athletes share coverage on the website for the Centre for Sport, Recreation and Wellness. Our varsity teams compete in the British Columbia Collegiate Athletic Association or our baseball and golf teams have inserted themselves in American college athletic associations. Many of the rugby players are Douglas College alumni. The club and college have maintained a symbiot- ic attachment for many years and will for years to come. The Blues men’s record has been less than stellar in the new millennium. Competition is high in the Fraser Valley Rugby Union with the likes of Abbottsford, Kamloops and Langley as some of the stronger clubs in their league. These same clubs have strong exclusive local bases to draw their play- ers from year after year. Their distance from Greater Vancouver discourages talent from escaping with dreams of playing BC Premiere Division rugby. The Fraser Valley plays with a first divi- sion, second division and whatever clubs can field third division teams. Selection coaches tend to pay more attention to the high profile clubs in the urban areas of Vancouver and Toronto so the further out of the city you are, the less exposure your players receive. A dozen men show up to the first ever Douglas College practice. I can’t help imagining a motley crew of college boys not quite sure what lay ahead for the team. The team grew into the Totem Conference Collegiate for 15-a-side rugby until that league folded around 1975. The British Columbia College Athletics Association would replace it eventually but the Douglas team joined the Fraser Valley 2nd Division with two teams until one of them won it. The http://otherpress.douglas.bc.ca_ —e 80’s saw the club as a strong fixture in the area; no doubt some of the old boys have quite a few stories of their golden days. There was an attempt to form a college league in the 90’s that included Douglas, University of British Columbia, Trinity Western University, University College of the Fraser Valley and even the University of Northern British Columbia. It was the West Coast Rugby League and Douglas won it a couple of times. The league didn’t last and the Blues have been in the Fraser Valley league ever since. The formation of the Premiere league hurt teams like Douglas, according to Van Niekerk. A few of Douglas’ recent legends still hang around the club pick- ing up games here and there but they have hit a baby boomer-like wall. Old Boy involvement in the club is fairly sporadic and ineffective. Clubs depends on the veteran ranks to take the reins of organizing the troops. The college age players are a fairly thin crop but there is a big group of high school players grow- ing into starting positions on the first and second division squads. While the men’s program has been struggling, the junior men’s program has flourished thanks to junior coach Ross Kinnaird. Kinnaird’s group began at Glen Eagle where the group was quite successful. Last season the junior Blues came sec- ond in their league. When the men were thin in ranks, the younguns pulled double and sometimes triple duty on a Saturday. Under 21 Front row player, Greg “Deuce” Doucette brought some notoriety to the club this past year Continued on page 26 Page 25