The Assassins RFC has had a busy few months organizing for the upcoming spring youth rugby season. One of the main priorities for the club is to introduce kids to the game we all love, and historically, a big focus for the Assassin’s is to grow the game at the high school level. These high school kids are who feed into the senior program, and have helped our amazing club thrive over the last 57 years. The Assassin’s RFC is actively running programs at a considerable number of Winnipeg high schools for the 2024 season. These include: Dakota Collegiate, Windsor Park Collegiate, St. John’s, Murdoch, Glenlawn, CJS and Churchill. There is also the exciting prospect of a brand new program at Pembina Trails Collegiate via one of our players teaching there, as well as the possibility of a new program in Ile des Chênes!
The backbone of the Assassin’s senior program, since the mid 2000’s, has been the programs at Churchill, Glenlawn and CJS. They have been the club’s strongest teams, meaning these schools traditionally have fared very well in the high school leagues winning numerous championships. This has led to a large contingent of our current athletes being graduates of these programs, and continuing to pursue the sport as part of the Assassin’s family and as lifelong rugby participants. Since the pandemic, high school rugby has been the hardest hit, and these programs have been difficult to recover. Many club members are alumni of these schools and are committed to volunteering their time to get these programs running again, and to attract a new batch of future Assassins. Throughout January/February, we have been hosting Try Rugby days with the goal of building interest in rugby at these schools before practices officially begin to be run in mid- March. Competing with other more popular sports in North America such as basketball and soccer, it’s hard to come across gym time to get an earlier start! We were able to run a successful day at Glenlawn on Friday January 26, which is a school we haven’t had a program in for the past season. The session saw 8 club members volunteer their time for the 18 student athletes who attended. An encouraging session, with the school having a particularly strong group of athletes, both female and male and they are excited to learn rugby, and have a great season for the school. The next Try Rugby day is taking place at CJS on Tuesday February 20th and one at Churchill likely to follow in February/March.
The club is also bringing back the Assassins RFC High School Academy Day scheduled for Saturday April 20th, 2024. This day provides all the students involved in high school programs the Assassins are coaching in, some preseason games to get ready for the high school season starting April/early May. Every year each school always has players new to the sport so this extra game time is important. The theme of the day has always been these are your high school opponents, but in the future these will be your Assassin teammates! We always appreciate the support of our wider Assassin community, so If you are interested in helping with some coaching or being involved in any of the events mentioned above, please contact any club member or reach out to our youth development coordinator at brendankowal@gmail.com