about
HISTORY
The Canadian University Men’s Rugby Championship was developed in 2016 and saw its inaugural tournament in 2017. While there were numerous corporate sponsors involved, the primary financial sponsor was the Canadian Rugby Foundation, with its Chair Mike Holmes one of four founders, along with long-time University of Victoria coach Doug Tate, Bishop’s University alumnus Keith Labbett, and current Foundation Executive Director Jeff Chan.
Prior to 2017 there had been no national championship for University Men’s XVs Rugby, as there is for Women under the U SPORTS umbrella, so the CUMRC was created to fill that gap, to encourage additional university teams to step up and compete to represent their regions, to deepen the university rugby talent pool and to ultimately improve the calibre of Canadian rugby at the senior level.
An application has been submitted to U SPORTS to add Men’s XVs Rugby to its portfolio of national university sports, joining Women’s Rugby and a decision on this is pending.
OBJECTIVES
- Develop the Talent Pathway
Build a deeper national player pool by providing a high-performance bridge to Rugby Canada programs and professional rugby teams. - Grow & Elevate Competition
Strengthen and expand the calibre of men’s university rugby across Canada, especially outside traditional strongholds in BC and Ontario. - Set the National Benchmark
Offer a clear measuring stick for programs to assess performance, identify gaps, and drive improvement to compete for the national title. - Ensure Long-Term Sustainability & Recognition
Secure a stable funding model to keep the Championship the marquee event for men’s university rugby and support progress toward U SPORTS status.
TEAMS
Since 2017 when 29 teams in 4 regions across Canada competed to qualify for the CUMRC tournament, the number of teams has grown gradually each year to the point where 33 teams in 5 regions – BC, Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic – have competed to qualify for the CUMRC tournament. New in 2022 were the Carleton Ravens and Memorial Seahawks, and in 2023, the York University Lions, and we are working to add additional programs – who are already competing at a non-varsity level – to our qualifying pool of teams.
RESULTS
| Year | Host | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Recap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) | Guelph | ETS | UBC | 2025 Recap |
| 2024 | University of Ottawa | ETS | Queen's | UBC | 2024 Recap |
| 2023 | Trinity Western | UBC | UVic | Guelph | 2023 Recap |
| 2022 | University of British Columbia | UBC | McGill | Guelph | 2022 Recap |
| 2021 | Queen's University | UBC | UVic | Queen's | 2021 Recap |
| 2020 | Not held (COVID-19) | ||||
| 2019 | Concordia University | UVic | UBC | Queen's | |
| 2018 | University of Victoria | UBC | Queen's | UVic | |
| 2017 | University of Guelph | UBC | UVic | McMaster |