Canada prepares to send teams to Commonwealth Youth Games

Canadian U18 women’s and men’s sevens rosters will compete at the Trinbago 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games this August.  
 
First held in 2000, the seventh edition of this international multi-sport event organized by the Commonwealth Games Federation will be held in Trinidad and Tobago over August 4 to 11. The rugby sevens competition will feature six women’s and six men’s teams competing at Shaw Park Cultural Complex on Tobago from August 6 to 8. 
 
Along with Canada, the women’s competition will include Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, Wales, Kenya and Australia, and the men’s competition will include Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, Jamaica, Scotland, and South Africa. 
 
Canada’s women’s team will be coached by Darcy Patterson, assistant coach with the University of British Columbia (UBC) and head coach of UBC’s CanWest winning sevens program. Patterson also coached BC to a gold medal last summer at the inaugural Canada Summer Games rugby sevens competition, and led a U18 team at the World School Sevens in December. This will be Patterson’s second Commonwealth Youth Games, as she was an assistant coach with Canada’s silver medal winning women’s team in 2017. 
 
Head coach of Rugby Canada’s next generation (Maple Leaf) men’s sevens programming, Nigel D’Acre, will lead Canada’s men’s team. Earlier this year, D’Acre worked with up-and-coming players from the across the country at two international tournaments, coaching a Western Canadian team at the Los Angeles Invitational Sevens in February and an Eastern Canadian team at the Tropical Sevens in April. 
 
Canada’s full rosters (including alternates) will be announced in June. Selection for the women’s team will be based on nominations from provincial unions, with trials taking place across Canada for the nominated players in advance of final selection. Canada’s men’s team will be selected using the Coast to Coast identification process utilized by Rugby Canada’s U18 men’s 15s program this past year, as well as footage from invitational sevens tournaments. 
 
“Sending U18 sevens teams to compete at a tournament like the Commonwealth Youth Games is a significant component of the work we are doing to build up the future of Canadian rugby,” said Sean White, Canada’s Men’s Sevens Team interim Head Coach. “As a development tool, tournaments like this are unmatched. But more than that, being at a multi-sport Games surrounded by other young high performance athletes is a special moment for players, one of the many that their rugby future holds. ” 
 
“The Commonwealth Youth Games is a valuable development opportunity and a big step in re-establishing a pathway to representing Canada at the senior level," said Jack Hanratty, Canada’s Women’s Sevens Team Head Coach. “Many players who represented Canada at this unique youth multi-sport experience in the past are now representing Canada on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series or in international 15s competition.” 
 
The 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games on Isle of Man was the first time a Canadian rugby sevens team participated in the event, with Canada’s men’s team finishing as Plate champions. Players from that roster that went on to represent Canada on a senior national team included Jorden Best, Justin Douglas, Lucas Hammond and Patrick Kay. 
 
Canada’s first medal in rugby sevens at the Commonwealth Youth Games came in 2015 in Samoa—the only medal won by Canada at the Games, with a roster that included the likes of Olivia Apps, Alysha Corrigan, Caroline Crossley, Nakisa Levale and Julia Schell. 
 
The last edition of the Commonwealth Youth Games was in 2017 in the Bahamas. A Canadian women’s roster that included Olivia De Couvreur, Keyara Wardley, Sophie de Goede, Taylor Black, Carmen Izyk and Tausani Levale won silver. Canada’s men’s team, which included Brock Webster, David Richard, Lockie Kratz and Jarvis Dashkewytch, finished fourth. 
 
More information about the Trinbago 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games can be found here.