The British Columbia Bears (formerly Pacific Tyee) are the senior men's representative rugby team for British Columbia. They were founded in 2009 to compete in the Americas Rugby Championship against other representative teams from Canada, Argentina, and the United States.[1] In their inaugural season, the Bears went undefeated in round robin play against other Canadian teams and only fell to the Argentina Jaguars in the ARC Final.
Beginning in 2010 the team, along with the Ontario Blues, The Rock, and the Prairie Wolf Pack, have participated in the newly formed Canadian Rugby Championship. This offshoot of the Americas Rugby Championship sees these teams once again compete in a round robin schedule.
Home grounds
The Bears do not have a permanent home ground but play at various fields around British Columbia. In their inaugural year the team hosted matches at Brockton Oval in Vancouver and MacDonald Park in Victoria as well as at Westhills Stadium (then known as Bear Mountain Stadium) in Langford. The 2010 season saw the Bears play exclusively at Klahanie Park in West Vancouver. 2011 saw the team again play a majority of their home games at Klahanie with the exception of one match being played at the Apple Bowl in Kelowna. For the 2013 season, the Bears played exclusively at Westhills Stadium.
