{"id":3426,"date":"2013-08-07T15:46:44","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T19:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=3426"},"modified":"2013-08-14T14:52:26","modified_gmt":"2013-08-14T18:52:26","slug":"local-rugby-player-takes-on-nation-in-calgary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/local-rugby-player-takes-on-nation-in-calgary\/","title":{"rendered":"Local rugby player takes on nation in Calgary"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Doner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kevin Rush isn\u2019t sure where his rugby career is going to take him yet, but the Aurora native recently had the honour of representing his province at the U19 Canadian Rugby Championship in Calgary as part of the Ontario Blues squad.<\/p>\n

Playing for the Laurier Golden Hawks during the school year and the Aurora Barbarians senior men\u2019s team in the summer, Rush said he was proud to make the team and that the experience he gained was beneficial.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, I didn\u2019t play as much as I wanted to, but it was really good,\u201d he said \u201cI was surrounded by the best in the country in my age group and it was just really cool to see the Canada guys. It was good seeing all the different teams and what they bring \u2013 BC has got some huge guys that can run a whole game. It was just really cool to play with Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the reason why he didn\u2019t see much playing time was because of an injury in his first game of the tournament against British Columbia.
\n\u201cIn the first eight minutes I got an elbow against BC,\u201d he said, pointing to a gnarly scar over his eye. \u201cI got 18 stitches from that and it took an hour and a half to stitch up.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his team expecting to make it deep into the tournament, they fought hard against the competition, but were humbled by the Prairie Wolf Pack, a team composed of players from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a game we lost, but should have won,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really perform. A lot of people had the mentality that BC and Ontario would be in the finals, but Alberta came out gunning this year and we simply underperformed, they just kept putting on pressure.\u201d
\nBut the team brushed it off and went on to defeat Quebec handily to earn tournament bronze.<\/p>\n

Rush, 18, did get some more playing time in, which he said is important if you want to take your rugby career further.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing for the U19 team is to showcase yourself for the U20 Canada team,\u201d he explained. \u201cThat\u2019s what a lot of guys think of it as, because a lot of the coaches and personnel for Canada teams are there watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said nationals wasn\u2019t just about playing the games, but there was a huge educational side of things as well. There were tutorials and seminars on what it would take to play for Team Canada that included sessions on workouts, nutrition and hydration and strength and conditioning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were all important if you want to get into U20. It taught us what we need to be at if we want to play with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playing the position of tighthead prop, the former football player, who found himself gravitating towards rugby, hopes to continue to gain experience on the field with the Ontario squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a very physical player, which is why I think I made it to Ontario; my only problem is knowing every play of the game. I\u2019m not at the point yet where I can predict a play, but that\u2019s just due to a lack of experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

But obviously the coaches of the Ontario team liked what they saw for him to make it on the 24-man roster.<\/p>\n

These days, Rush is playing quite a bit of rugby between the Barbarians and Golden Hawks varsity team.<\/p>\n

Going into his second year studying computer science, Rush said he is loving Laurier, but admitted he has his eye on maybe transferring to Queen\u2019s in hopes of joining their rugby program.<\/p>\n

Back at home, he is in his fourth year with the Barbs and gave credit to the Aurora organization for helping him succeed in the sport he loves.
\n\u201cI started with the Barbs and that\u2019s where I learned all the basics,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s where I fell in love with rugby and the Barbs are just a great club. We have all sorts of natural talent here. There have been some great guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cFellow Barbarian Nolan [Ott] has been a really good mentor for me. He always talks to me, tells me what I\u2019ve got to do and why.\u201d
\nRush now faces many big decisions about his rugby career and where it is headed. <\/p>\n

\u201cRugby-wise, I just want to get better. I won\u2019t be here for the finals for the Barbs, because I\u2019ll be in school and I won\u2019t be able to play a lot of the games unless I come home. Ontario\/Canada-wise, I\u2019m not sure, but if I can keep going and play rugby for Canada, I would love that. To play the top level of rugby for my country, that would be so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin Rush isn\u2019t sure where his rugby career is going to take him yet, but the Aurora native recently had the honour of representing his province at the U19 Canadian Rugby Championship in Calgary as part of the Ontario Blues squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-Tg","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 09:17:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/2013-08-07-01.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}