BC Rugby is thrilled to announce a major evolution of the Provincial Regional Championships (PRCs) with the introduction of a brand-new competition structure: the Provincial Regional Leagues (PRL).
Set to launch in June 2025, the PRL will provide a more competitive and sustainable pathway for regional rugby talent, culminating in a new-look 2025 Provincial Regional Championships hosted at Shawnigan Lake School on July 5-6, 2025.
This landmark change comes after extensive consultation with stakeholders across the BC Rugby community, addressing key concerns and feedback surrounding the sustainability of the PRCs in its current format while also prioritizing player safety and development. The new structure aims to enhance regional recruitment and competition frameworks and create a more competitive and safer environment that ensures athletes are better prepared for provincial representative programs.
The new look PRL and PRCs will consist of four regions – Fraser Valley, Interior, Vancouver and Vancouver Island – competing across U15, U17 and U19 Boys and Girls competition. During the four weeks of June, the four regions will participate in their own regionally-developed competitions that allow for a diverse and custom experience and to better connect Club and high school athletes to the regional and provincial pathways.
A new-look PRCs in July will be the grand final of the PRLs, with each region bringing one team per division that are selected from their own internal PRL competitions. Teams will compete over two days, with each team guaranteed two full-length games (one per day). This allows for a more selective, best-on-best experience for BC’s top young athletes, allowing them to better develop for provincial and national competitions.
The change in format also provides BC Bears Coaches further opportunities to assess athletes for provincial competition, with both the PRL and PRCs acting as key provincial representative selection tools.
“The Provincial Regional Leagues represent a significant step forward for our regional and provincial rugby programs. This evolution ensures that we continue to provide a high-performance environment while making regional competition more accessible and sustainable for our rugby community. The return to best-on-best regional competition in a new-look PRCs format will ensure BC’s top young athletes are better prepared for provincial and national competition.” BC Rugby Interim CEO John Tait
The Provincial Regional Championships will remain the pinnacle event of regional rugby in BC, with 2025 event set to take place at Shawnigan Lake School on July 5-6, 2025. This reimagined structure will allow for more meaningful competition leading into the PRCs while ensuring athletes are performing at their peak when it matters most.
More details regarding the Provincial Regional Leagues, including schedules and regional team participation, will be released in the coming weeks.
KEY CHANGES AND BENEFITS
Introduction of the Provincial Regional Leagues (PRL)
A regionalised, focused and custom competition for each of the four regions taking place during the month of June to assist in regional development and recruitment for the 2025 junior Club season. The PRL will foster increased game time, balanced competition bespoke to each region, and a more robust development pathway for Club, high school, regional and provincial athletes. Regional Unions are leading the development of their respective PRL competition with BC Rugby providing logistical support to create a competition that best fits the competitive and development needs of their region.
Best on Best Regional PRCs
As the grand final of the PRL, the new PRCs format will see a return to best-on-best regional competition, ensuring athletes are exposed to a more selective and competitive environment to better develop for provincial and national competitions with a longer form, more meaningful games that better emulate National Competition.
Competitive & Safe Play
A shift away from the previous condensed PRCs format will help reduce player fatigue/workload and injuries while allowing for greater recovery, increased game time and performance optimisation.
Stronger Pathway to Provincial Teams
The new PRL and PRCs format will create a more refined talent identification process, enabling BC Bears Coaches to assess players over multiple matches rather than a single weekend of competition.
Increased Accessibility/Equity in Hosting
Due to a condensed PRCs format, the PRCs can now be hosted across different regions each year, providing revenue generating opportunities, year-to-year sharing of travel expenses, and access to the highest level of Age-Grade provincial Rugby.
CURRENT FORMAT CHALLENGES
The Provincial Regional Championships was born out the BC Summer Games; in the early 1990s, BC Summer Games had a Regional XVs competition until it was swapped with Rugby 7s in the early 2000s. BC Rugby then transitioned to the current PRC format, which takes place across three days in July each year. The event is key to the provincial pathway, and allows athletes to compete in a high-performance environment ahead of provincial and national competition.
Since COVID, the PRCs was opened to a wider range of teams to re-establish regions and increase the player base throughout BC. While the current PRCs format provides three exciting days of regional Rugby, the event has become bloated with limited competitive matches, physical overloading of athletes and increased injury risks to players.
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