The Rocky Mountains and the Bay of Fundy are about as far apart as two Canadian landscapes can be. One towers over Alberta. The other empties twice a day and leaves behind the highest tides in the world. This summer, a group of young rugby players got to play in both.
In July, about 24 Halifax Tars Rugby Football Club (RFC) players aged 17 and under travelled west to play at the base of the mountains. Then roughly 20 young players from Alberta’s Bow Valley came east. The Tars made sure the visitors received the full east coast experience: Peggy’s Cove, Citadel Hill, downtown Halifax and a game of rugby on the ocean floor at Burntcoat Head.
“I think the greatest part of their trip was swimming in the ocean,” says Darryl Cross, one of the key organizers of the Halifax Tars Rugby Youth Exchange program. “We take it for granted how special it is.”
The exchange was built on one idea: getting more kids a real taste of the game, whatever their experience, whatever their family could afford. And like a lot of good rugby stories, it started over a chat in the clubhouse.
In the summer of 2025, Don Logan, a former Tars player now living in Alberta, brought his family home to Nova Scotia on vacation. His kids were deeply involved in rugby out west, so he asked Nora Doran, the Tars’ director of youth rugby, if they could join some practices.
During that visit, the two talked about how hard it can be for kids just to get the chance to try something new. Nora knew about Rugby Nova Scotia’s past youth exchanges with Saskatchewan and a club in Peterborough, Ontario and suggested the Tars and Logan’s club try one.
When Nora realized she couldn’t run the youth program and a tour at the same time, she knew exactly who to call.
“Darryl and I have been friends for so long, I know his phone number by heart,” she says. “He’s just got an immense positive personality and outlook. He’s so engaging.”
The Tars sent two age groups west, split evenly between boys and girls. Each visit ran six days, and visiting players were billeted with local families. Darryl knows that experience well.
“I grew up billeting all over the world,” he recalls. “You get to really see how people live.”
Not every family could host, and that didn’t matter. Neither did cost or how much rugby experience a player had under their belt.
“We wanted to make this an accessible adventure for everybody,” says Darryl. “We wanted them to have a rugby tour experience like many of us had when we were young and get them hooked on a game that we love so much.”
For 13-year-old Liam Cross, Darryl’s younger son, the trip west was an eye-opener. “It was a very different kind of game there,” he says. “We played more full-field games and there were some big players. It felt very fast-paced.”
His takeaway sounds like something a veteran might say. “Rugby’s different everywhere,” Liam says. “You just gotta get used to it. It’s like one big family, basically.”
This year, the Tars had about 275 youth players aged four to 16. Darryl believes it’s the largest youth program in Atlantic Canada, and on Monday and Thursday nights all three fields are full.
It started small. When Darryl was president of the Tars, his main goal was to launch a youth program, beginning with his own kids and a handful of teammates’ children. Nora, who became the club’s first and only female president in the mid-2000s, has overseen its growth since.
She arrived in Halifax in 2002 from Ontario without knowing anyone. “I knew I played rugby, so I figured I’d join a rugby club and they’d become my friends,” she says. “And sure enough, that’s what happened.”
Today the Tars draw players from across Halifax out to Tantallon. There are free rugby sessions in schools, dues are kept low and very little equipment is needed. On Monday nights after practice, parents run a by-donation barbecue at the clubhouse in Graves-Oakley Memorial Park in Halifax’s Spryfield community.
“The kids feel like it’s their clubhouse, their home,” says Nora. “Our offering of the sport is for everyone. Most kids haven’t been exposed to it before, so it’s never too late to join.”
Darryl was one of those kids once, growing up in St. John’s, Newfoundland. In 1992, his best friend’s older brother suggested he give rugby a try.
“I thought, geez, I’m big, I could play,” he says. “I went out and realized I had no idea what I was doing.”
Darryl went on to play for the Swilers, the Atlantic Rock and later captained the Nova Scotia Keltics against his home province. “I got a lot of Newfoundland handshakes, if you know what I mean,” he says with a laugh.
More than 30 years after picking up the sport, he’s still playing. This year he helped the Tars win the Division 1 Maritime championship. For him, the game rests on one thing.
“The foundation of rugby is built off respect,” he says. “There are 30 players on the field and one official. So, respect for the referee, respect for your teammates, respect for the other team and respect for your fans.”
Darryl admits his sons, Sam and Liam, didn’t have much choice about rugby. He was starting a youth program and needed numbers. Both found the passion anyway.
(Photo Contributed)
Sam, the older of the two, captained J.L. Ilsley High to a Division 2 championship just a year after the school’s program started.
“You have to work with your teammates and grow as a group,” Sam says. “No one player can win a game by themselves.”
This summer, both boys represented Nova Scotia. Sam won gold with the U17 Keltics. Liam, playing up an age group in his first Keltics season, won silver with the U15 side at the Atlantic championships in PEI. He calls it his proudest moment in the game, and he already knows where he wants to go next.
“My dream is probably to play for the country,” says Liam.
For their father, it was a summer to remember. “That was a pretty cool, full-circle moment for me,” says Darryl about seeing the kids travel between provinces.
The Rockies and the Bay of Fundy are still a long way apart. But for a group of young rugby players on both sides of the country, the distance has gotten a lot shorter. As Liam puts it: “Rugby is one big family.”
