Canadian Rugby Championship
Current season, competition or edition: 2016 CRC season
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 |
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| Sport | Rugby Union |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2009 |
| No. of teams | 4 |
| Country |
 Canada
|
| Most recent champion(s) |
Prairie Wolf Pack (1st title) |
| Most titles | Ontario Blues (4 titles) |
| Official website | canadianrugbychampionship.com |
The Canadian Rugby Championship (CRC) is an amateur rugby union league located in Canada, partially funded by the International Rugby Board (IRB). It is the highest level of domestic rugby in Canada. There are four representative teams from regions across Canada, competing for the MacTier Cup. The regular season goes from August to September, and there is no post-season. The CRC was started in 2009 by Rugby Canada. The league continues to grow each year, with further games being added to the schedule, and the format having changed in each of its first three years, making the league more competitive and a prospect of becoming professional one day.
Gord Sneddon is the current league commissioner.
In 2006, the IRB started the North America 4 (NA4), to help create a higher level of rugby in North America, as well as to develop players and provide a pathway to national team selection and to make North American rugby teams more competitive at international level. It was contested by four teams, two each from Canada and the USA.
On September 7, 2009 the IRB scrapped the NA4 and unveiled the ARC competition, in which Canada, the USA and Argentina would send representative teams to play for a championship title (Tonga was later added in the second season, replaced with Uruguay from 2012 onwards)
In order to select a team that would play in the ARC, Rugby Canada unveiled the CRC, with the champion and runner-up advancing to the ARC. Following the first season, a Canada Selects team was chosen by Team Canada coach Kieran Crowley instead, exclusively from players who competed in the CRC.
In the inaugural 2009 season, six games were played in a round-robin format, similar to that of The Rugby Championship, with the team collecting the most points over the season being named champions.
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