Eight members of the Bow Valley Rugby Club will head to Toronto next week to represent our town on the national scale.

Five U18 boys, two U16 boys, and one U16 girl have made the Prairies Wolfpack team which will face off against the top teams in Canada at the Canadian Rugby Championships.

AJ Mears, U16 girls, says it's her first year ever playing rugby, and it's been a long process to make it to the Wolfpack.

"I gave up most of my summer for this," she says. "It was driving out to Red Deer on Sundays, going to every one of my club practices, going to regional practices, so I would say I worked extremely hard for this."

The 15 year old thinks her team should do very well.

"We have a very fast team, and the skill level of our team is very good, so I think we have a good shot."

Austin Dixon, U18 boys, says it's a big accomplishment for those who made the Wolfpack.

"We've all been grinding since the beginning here," he explains. "Ever since high school, we tried out for all these regional teams, we've been to tons of tryouts, long days, long hours, and just putting in the work to get to where we are now so it's a pretty good feeling."

He is confident everyone heading to Toronto will represent the prairies well.

"We're all representing Cochrane here, we're small town boys, so we're going to put on a show for everybody and give it our all."

The following Cochrane athletes will head to the Canadian Rugby Championship:

U18 boys:

  • Branden Mangold
  • Rylen Waugh
  • Austin Dixon
  • Craig De La Mare
  • Brennnan Bourchier

U16 boys:

  • Oscar Holbrough
  • Isiah Springer

U16 girls:

  • AJ Mears