EDMONTON – On paper, the biggest tournament of the season didn’t go exactly how the Banff Bears senior boys rugby team wanted it to.
Going 0-5 at the ASAA Rugby Sevens Provincials, a win eluded the Bears on May 27-28 in Edmonton, but the main goal of the tournament and season was checked off.
“One of the players even said, ‘coach, this was one of the best weekends of my life.’ I think that speaks volumes of how much these kids have missed sport over the last few years,” said Bears head coach Ian Higginbottom.
“We went into it with the mindset that it’s just another weekend to enrich the season and get these boys another opportunity to play.”
The Bears, two years away from the pitch, entered the 2022 season with rebuilding in mind.
All season long, the team looked for opportunities to test themselves and when a spot opened to attend provincials due to low participation province-wide, the Bears jumped on it.
Both Banff boys and girls teams have fielded some of Alberta’s top high school 15s squads in the past 10 years, but are still a season or two away from returning to that level.
“One thing that happened to us all year, we just had a lot of little errors,” said Higginbottom. “We turned over the ball way too many times to be a championship team.”
However, with limited field time and game knowledge, the Bears showed they could hang with the teams at provincials.
Banff played in a tight four-team grouping against the West Island College Wolves, which would go on to win provincials, Westmount Wild and Frank Maddock Warriors.
Aside from being blanked 27-0 by the Wolves in the tournament opener, the Bears held their own in each of the following matches, falling 17-12 to the Wild, 22-19 to the Warriors, and 19-7 to the Wolves.
“I think it was meaningful to everyone, even win or lose,” said Grade 11 scrum half Cam Geyer. “Playing in a provincials game like that, it was unbelievable just to be at that tournament in the first place … I think everyone was super focused and into the game and we all had a role there.”
The Bears' major moment of the tourney came in the rematch against the Wolves, when the hungry squad scored the only try against the undefeated team at provincials.
Geyer touched down on the play.
“I think that was a big moment for all of us,” said Geyer, who was the Bears' top player in Edmonton.
“Playing all these teams from across the province and everyone getting experience to play, I think, it was a really good learning experience.
“We will lose a lot of players [next season], but we’ll also gain a lot from this provincials moving into next year. I think we’ll do better.”
