X-Women rugby standouts Ghislaine Landry and Lisa Gauthier have been selected to the Canadian university rugby 7’s team.  The team will compete in the world university women's rugby sevens championship from this July in Portugal.

The appointment marks the second consecutive time Landry has been named to the national team, she competed at the world championship last summer in Spain and won a silver medal with team Canada. It will be Gauthier’s first appearance with the national university 7’s squad. Jessica Dovanne of Saint Mary’s University was the only other AUS athlete to be named to the 14 member team.

In preparation for the international event, the team will be participating in the Women’s Invitational Sevens Tournament, hosted by USA Rugby in Las Vegas this weekend, with both Landry and Gauthier making the trip with the team. The tournament consists of two pools of three teams each. Canada is in Pool B with France and USA blue, while Pool A consists of USA white, China and Germany. Pool play and early knockout stages will take place on Friday, Feb. 12th, followed by a day off on Saturday and the championship game on Sunday.

The game of rugby sevens is an abbreviated version of the fifteen-a-side game with teams playing much shorter matches. Halves are usually 7 or 10 minutes long instead of 20 minutes. The sport had grown rapidly as of late, the Canadian national rugby sevens team competed ay the first Sevens World Cup this past March in Dubai, and rugby sevens is now on the Olympic schedule for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.

StFX’s Ghislaine Landry is no stranger to the rugby pitch. A fourth year Human Kinetics student from Toronto, ON, she had basically re-written the AUS record book in her four years at StFX and will graduate this May as one, if not the most, decorated female athletes in StFX history. She has twice been awarded the CIS Player of the Year award (2007, 2008), she is the reigning four-time AUS Athlete of the Year and has won the StFX Female Athlete of the Year award in each of her past three seasons. 

The 2006 CIS women’s rugby Rookie of the Year, Ghislaine was the AUS female nominee for the prestigious BLG Award last April for the CIS Athlete of the Year. She has been named a CIS all-Canadian for four consecutive seasons and she helped the X-Women win their first national title as a rookie in 2006. The X-Women followed up with CIS silver medals in 2008 and 2009. Ghislaine is currently the AUS record holder in career points (352) and tries (70) and had scored a try in every regular season game she played in over the past 4 years. She also holds the AUS records for most points scored in a single game (35), most tries scored in a single game (7) and most tries scored in a single season (22).

StFX teammate Lisa Gauthier has also made a mark on the AUS record book in only two seasons to date. The second year Arts student from St. Bernadin, ON currently sits fifth overall in AUS career points (100), and third in career tries (20). The 2008 AUS rookie of the year has been named an AUS all-star in each of the past two seasons and this past fall earned recognition as a CIS all-Canadian.

As the two X-Women compete in Las Vegas this weekend for team Canada, all games on Friday will be streamed online at http://www.ustream.tv/usarugby. The Canadians face France at 10:00 am (PST), USA Blue at 11:20 am and USA White at 12:20 pm with the consolation and semi-finals slated for later in the afternoon.

The official release from Canadian Interuniversity Sport follows below on the announcement of the Canadian university sevens team.

2010 FISU world university rugby sevens championship
Canadian team announced

OTTAWA – Canadian Interuniversity Sport announced Monday the student-athletes and support staff who will represent Canada at the fourth FISU world university women's rugby sevens championship from July 21 to 24, 2010 in Porto, Portugal. 

Suzanne Chaulk, head coach of the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, is returning for her fourth Championship, having steered Team Canada to gold medal performances in Beijing, China in 2004, and Rome, Italy in 2006 and a silver finish in Cordoba, Spain in 2008.

Chaulk is joined by several of her University of Ottawa coaching staff, including  Jean-Philippe Lavoie, an assistant coach with the Gee Gees program, who will joining the program for the first time in the combined role of Team Leader/Assistant Coach.  Hussan Saeed, also in his first appearance with the program, will be serving as the team’s Strength and Conditioning Coach.  Rounding out the group is Carrie Smith, Team Physiotherapist and a veteran with the program, having worked with Chaulk at all three previous World Championships.

The squad was chosen at a selection camp held in Ottawa the third week of November which featured thirty-five of the top athletes from universities all over the country.  Chaulk, in highlighting the exceptional quality of athletes competing for a spot on this year’s team, believes that this is a reflection of the talented athletes and coaches competing within Canada’s universities.   “There is absolutely no comparison to that first camp in 2004.  And that’s high praise indeed when you consider that the majority of the players who participated in 2004 were National Team athletes.”

The Canadians are heading to Las Vegas this week to participate in the prestigious U.S. Invitational Women’s International Sevens Tournament, which is held in conjunction with the IRB International Men’s event.  Although it’ll be first taste of international-level competition for many members of the team, against far more seasoned competition, this is a very important tune-up in our preparations, Chaulk says.  “This will be our only opportunity to actually play games, and in a tournament format that is similar to what we’ll face in Portugal.” 

Despite facing more senior competition, Chaulk believes that this team is more than capable of competing in Las Vegas; pointing out that in 2008, Team Canada finished a very respectable fourth with an inexperienced roster.  “This time around we have a number of athletes with experience at the international level, including four returning players from the team that competed in Spain.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see us finish in the medals.”  

“More importantly, this preparation takes on even greater significance when viewed in the light of an expanded FISU Tournament and the level of competition that we will encounter there,” explains Chaulk.   Until now, the women’s side of the FISU tournament has been limited to 6 teams, but this year will see an unprecedented 15 teams participating, with some of the world’s strongest rugby countries represented for the first time.  “I suspect that this is a reaction to the recent addition of 7-a-side rugby to the Olympics in 2016.” says Chaulk.  “There’s no doubt that the addition of Australia and South Africa will raise the competitive level of the tournament significantly, but this sudden increase in participating teams also confirms that university rugby is viewed by many rugby powers as a key development stream for their national team programs.” 

TEAM CANADA ROSTER

Name                                          University                   Hometown
Shannon Court                         Lethbridge                   Calgary, Alta.
Jessica Dovanne                     Saint Mary’s                Victoria, B.C.
Annika Eriksson                       Alberta                          Edmonton, Alta.
Lisa Gauthier                           St. Francis Xavier        Ottawa, Ont.
Michelle Joslin                         Guelph                         Waterloo, Ont.
Ghislaine Landry                     St. Francis Xavier        Toronto, Ont.
Janine Martin                            Alberta                          Edmonton, Alta.
Marlene Nedved                       Alberta                          Edmonton, Alta.
Karen Paquin                           Laval                             Quebec City, Que.
Jocelyn Poirier                         Queen’s                        Ottawa, Ont.
Laura Russell                          Western Ontario           Bolton, Ont.
Charlotte Vallières-Villeneuve Laval                           Quebec City, Que.
Natasha Watcham-Roy           Ottawa                          Gatineau, Que.
Karlye Wong                              Queen’s                       Ottawa, Ont.

TEAM CANADA STAFF

Suzanne Chaulk is returning as the program’s head coach after leading the 2004 and 2006 Canadian teams to gold in Beijing, China and Rome, Italy and a silver medal in Cordoba, Spain in 2008.  Suzanne lives in Russell, Ontario and works in Learning Design for the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre in Ottawa.   Suzanne has been coaching the Gee-Gees since the program’s inception in 1991.  Over the years, Suzanne has coached at a variety of regional, provincial and national level teams and in 2004, she   spent a year studying at the National Coaching Institute in Victoria, B.C. where she received her Diploma in High Performance Coaching while completing her NCCP Level 4 certification.    

Jean-Philippe Lavoie is making his debut with Team Canada but he is no stranger to international competition.  JP is the former Team Manager for Rugby Canada’s National U-17 Men’s program and will be putting the extensive experience gained with that program to good use as Team Canada’s Assistant Coach and Team Leader.  JP lives in Gatineau, Quebec and works as a High Performance Coaching consultant with the Coaching Association of Canada.

Hassan Saeed is completing his Masters in Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa where he also serves as the Strength and Conditioning Coach for five of the university’s varsity sport programs, including the Gee Gees women’s rugby program.

Carrie Smith returns for a fourth championship run with the program having worked as the team’s therapist for the 2004, 2006 and 2008 campaigns. Carrie brings a multi-disciplinary approach to her therapy and has amassed a wealth of experience working with high performance athletes; including two Olympic Games (Nagano in 1998 and Vancouver in 2010), the ’99 Pan-Am Games in Winnipeg, and more recently, several appearances with the Canadian National Men’s Rugby team.  Carrie is a full-time physiotherapist and a co-owner of two physiotherapy clinics in eastern Ontario.