Rugby, another friendship link between Cuba and Canada

Apart from tackles and the typical roughness of rugby, sportsmen from Canada raised another friendship bridge with their colleagues from Cuba when the First International Rugby 7s Tournament, initiated by the Dog River Howlers Club, took place in Havana, Cuba in late February.

The strong Canadian team, with players like Ryan Smith (member of the national team) and Chilean Nicolás Arencibia, was one of the main sensations of the competition held at the Eduardo Saborit Sport Centre in western Havana. The Dog River Howlers, based in Regina, Saskatchewan, has mostly Canadian players, although it keeps its doors open for players from all over the world.

Not only Smith and Arencibia, the latter formerly of Chile′s main rugby team, brought the audience, more used to baseball, boxing, volleyball and track and field, to their feet cheering and applauding. Twelve teams and players from more than 10 countries captured the attention of a quite young crowd. There could have been no better time to get the message out about rugby in Cuba, as the local baseball league was in playoffs and everyone in sports-mad Cuba was in front of the TV when this strange new sport made its way into the headlines.

To give a boost to developing new figures in Cuban rugby is a great ambition of Dog River Howler president Karl Fix. It was Fix, a great supporter of the competition, who presented the José Martí Cup to the Howlers, the competition′s absolute winner.