Whose Brilliant Idea was it to Start the Club??

I’ll tell you who came up with this wonderful idea, it was Mike Curran; with a few others for support. When I met Curran, right away I knew what the type of guy he was... well I was a student and he was a teacher, but I knew that he was a kind of teacher that was dedicated and fun to be around and I knew there was no doubt that he would be coaching the Streetsville boys Rugby team.

Mike Curran started coaching at Brampton RFC, and there were a bunch of kids from Mississauga high schools with nowhere to play Rugby, and let’s get real here, who doesn’t like to play Rugby.

Over the past few years this club has been growing strong. It started in 2008 with the under 16 team with a little over 100 players, as time grew on, so did the club. It ran from Under 12 year olds, Under 14 year olds, Under 15 year olds, Under 16 year olds (boys), and an Under 17 year olds team (girls). With year six coming around the corner, Mississauga Blues Rugby Club has 300 members with 14 incredible teams ranging from Under 10 year olds Flag Rugby to Senior Men and Women and I am proud to present that we are now one of the largest Rugby club in Ontario.

This is all thanks to Mike Curran; it has been an amazing ride to get new and returning players each year. With the tour coming up, and a new season, Curran is still the dedicated and fun person I met 6 years ago.

Thanks Curran! We appreciate everything you have done for this club.

Women's Play All Over Ontario!

The women’s have been together for two years now, this summer will be our third season and year. And over the past two years we have played all over Ontario and counting, when playing teams that are outside of the GTA it gives us the ability to see how these different cities play Rugby. We have played: Orillia, Georgian Bay, Barrie, Oakville, Toronto, Cobourg, Lindsay, and even our own team, Mississauga.

Each season we played three different teams, three times each. By the end of the season everyone on the opposite team knew their tricks, so it was always a challenge to change our strategy so they wouldn’t clue in.
Our very first game was against Orillia and they beat us bad, this was because we just weren’t ready for our first game because we were new, this however, made Orillia the team to beat, the second time we played them they defiantly were not going to beat us, not this time. We had our head in the game and brutally beat them; they defiantly didn’t see that coming.

It’s hard to play different teams in their home town because there will always be that referee that say that they are not from there, but we all know that they are rooting for the home team to win, and the ref makes so many calls, some appropriate and some are not necessary.

The previous summer Orillia didn’t have enough girls who were able to play during the summer so they didn’t have team, the girls who wanted to play for Orillia, joined Barrie. This would the second year we played this team, by the end of it, it was like we knew each other. Familiar faces made it that much more enjoyable because they knew that our team was good, and it made us more intimidating, which I loved.

This summer of 2012, I hope that we play a couple of the same teams but also play different cities to see what more is out there, and that just adds to the list of the teams we have beat!

Fundraising for the Men’s’ Tour!

Just like every Rugby team, everyone wants to go and experience Rugby in its original habitat, where it originated from, and how the REAL Rugby stars play. Steetsville Secondary School have been traveling to Wales, England, and numerous of other places. Every other year a team from England (one of the places they have traveled) would come to Canada and would live with students from the Streetsville Rugby team and experience our wonderful country and the Streetsville Rugby team would do the same in England. However, this was only the boys’ team; the girls never have had enough people to go on their team to go.

Because Mississauga Blues was made in Streetsville, Mike Curran thought it would be a great idea for the Senior Men’s to go on tour to England and Wales in August 2012, the summer coming up. The past summer all of the men have be rubbing it in our faces that they are going on tour and the women aren’t. However, we are happy for them and hope they have fun, but sooner or later, the women will go, and hopefully it will be sooner than later!
The date is coming close and in order to raise some money for the occasion, the Blues team have come up with some ways to raise money, but have fun while doing it. The fist event was the Fundraising Poker Night; it was a great success, good time and a good party. Although, they didn’t raise as much money as they hoped, they raised a good amount, and any contribution is a great one. They have upcoming events, another poker night on February 21st and a Dinner Dance in early June. We hope that this will help to raise money for jerseys, and air travel.

This isn’t the first time the Blues is doing this, so they do have some experience in the field. The U18 girl’s team went to England and Wales last year in March, they had the best time of their life, and they lived with a bunch of different people while they were site seeing through all the different towns. Now we hope that the men will have as much fun as the girls did!!

There's No TEAM Without the COACH!

With each sport the person who you look up to is your coach, they are the person who teaches you everything you know, and I am happy to say that each and every Blues team have the greatest most experience coaches ever.

Mississauga Blues run 14 apply game experiences, all coaches are certified and we have over 20 wonderful and talented coaches in our club. There are so many coaches in our club that it would take me forever to talk about each one, so for the purpose of this blog I am going to talk about the Senior Men and Senior Women’s coaches from the past couple years.

Mike Curran is the coach for the Men’s team, he is a great coach; I know this from experience because he helped coach the Streetsville Secondary Varsity girls’ team and he helps the Women’s team from time to time. He is very well educated and loves Rugby; he has even played some games on the Men’s team as well! When it comes to a big team with big guys everyone may needs some help, and Blair Jones is perfect for that, he is the team manager for the Men’s team and always there to help (his daughter is on the U18 team) he also loves the game and very dedicated to the sport.

The Senior Women’s team has only been a team for two years now, and we have had the most amazing coach, Matt Piemontese is a great coach, he is there rain or shine and is very dedicated to the sport as well; he even runs the drills with us! “Dedication at its finest,” he is a teacher at Philip Pocock Secondary School and coaches the girls team there as well. However, he is now coaching the Sheridan College Women’s Rugby team and wants to put more time and effort on them this summer, but, he will step in and help the Women’s team once and a while and work with the U18 girls more. We are all very upset that he will no longer be a coach for us, but we know that where ever he coaches, that team will be great! We did come in first place both years you know!

Although, Matt is leaving us; we have two excellent coaches here to help. Keith Wilkinson and Jill Zonneveld are now our new coaches. Keith is a NCCP master learning felicitator and he is also a former National Canadian coach and player! He is very knowledgeable and knows Rugby from head to toe, I’m sure that he will be a great with our team. Jill is formally and IRB Women’s Rugby Counsel, she is a very nice and intelligent lady, but she can also kick some butt! Both she and Keith have been working together and have coached the U16s in the past. Our team is very excited for both of them to help. The season of 2012 will be a great one!

With a great coach there is a great team, we love every one of them!