Rugby Canada Super League


The Rugby Canada Super League was a national, semi-professional rugby union competition in Canada. The league represented the second level of domestic rugby union in Canada, and the highest level wholly indigenous to Canada. In terms of seniority it rested immediately beneath the IRB sponsored North America 4, a former US/Canadian cross-border competition in which two Canadian teams took part. Most players took part in RCSL on an amateur basis.
In early 2009, after 11 seasons of play, Rugby Canada decided to disband the RCSL in the wake of the establishment of the Americas Rugby Championship, the successor to the North America 4. The RCSL was replaced by the Canadian Rugby Championship and the Rugby Canada National Junior Championship, which absorbed the majority of the RCSL teams.

Overview

The competition was established in 1998 and had been played on an annual basis. It is considered to be Canada's premier wholly domestic rugby competition. Players on Canada's senior men's team were often chosen from Super League clubs.
The Super League drew its teams from provincial unions. Larger unions had more than one representative team; those teams were drawn largely from provincial sub-unions. For example, the Calgary Rugby Union and Edmonton Rugby Union are sub-unions of the larger Alberta Rugby Union and had both been given representation in the Super League.
Teams were divided into Eastern and Western Divisions and played each of the other teams in their division once. The top team in each division played each other for the national championship.
The league rarely had identical membership from season to season, with teams who have membership occasionally electing not to play due to financial, logistical or level-of-play concerns. For 2006 season, the Fraser Valley Rugby Union of B.C. and the Manitoba Rugby Union elected not to participate, which created an unbalanced situation where the Western Division had five teams, while the Eastern Division had seven.

Teams

Western Conference

Eastern Conference

Champions

YearChampionScoreRunner-up
1998Vancouver Island Crimson Tide—Nova Scotia Keiths
1999Vancouver Island Crimson Tide 23–11Toronto Renegades
2000Fraser Valley Venom15–9Nova Scotia Keltics
2001Fraser Valley Venom 20–14Toronto Renegades
2002Vancouver Island Crimson Tide 6–3Newfoundland Rock
2003Calgary Mavericks40–24Toronto Xtreme
2004Vancouver Island Crimson Tide 14–8Newfoundland Rock
2005Newfoundland Rock26–13Saskatchewan Prairie Fire
2006Newfoundland Rock 28–14Saskatchewan Prairie Fire
2007Saskatchewan Prairie Fire28–12Niagara Thunder
2008Newfoundland Rock 30–6Calgary Mavericks