In the 1970’s, Old Boys Over 40s rugby was in it’s infancy throughout the world, and rugby was unorganized for this age group. Several men’s clubs began fielding teams of over 40 players for exhibition games. Our first Over 40 game in BC took place in 1972 involving the one off barbarian “Maple Leaf” side which hosted a Japanese touring team called the Wak – Wak Club of Osaka. Excitement grew and two new groups were then created named the “Whoi Whoi” (now called Evergreens RFC), and the “Ebb Tide”. They were the first old boys teams in British Columbia to play each other. In 1975, the “Twilighter” Rugby Club was formed to play against the Ebb Tide & Whoi Whoi. Then things progressed very rapidly with the “Valley Vintage” (a spin off from Twilighter RFC) getting started. The first 15 years was a loose knit structure called the Over 40 Rugby Association with no formal executive and our annual meeting was chaired by the hosting rugby club. It was not until we held the 1993 First Pacific Northwest Over 40’s World Invitational Rugby Festival, that things were formalized. This tournament had established a source of revenue and more clubs began to be formed. Collectively, the founded clubs decided to form the Pacific Northwest Over 40 Rugby Union. This became Canada’s first Old Boys Union. Gordon Eddy and Stephen Baron were key players in the formation of PANORU. “Pencil” from the Evergreens RFC developed the winning logo for the new union. A constitution was adopted in 1995. Membership grew to 11 clubs including:
- Ebb Tide RFC
- Evergreen RFC
- Legends RFC
- Yoos to Bees RFC
- Priest Valley Vicars RFC
- Saratoga Beach RFC
- Seattle Old Guard RFC
- Snow Caps RFC
- Semiahmoo RFC
- Twilighter RFC
- Valley Vintage RFC
In 2015, the union welcomed co-ed rosters. As play developed, the union developed a series of “official” variations to better integrate a wide age group who were wearing age specific-coloured shorts. To date, players from age 38 to 85 years old, have successfully played in the CMRU. CMRU have been instrumental in the promotion of master’s rugby via Rugby BC, Rugby Canada and World Rugby.
Most clubs play 10 to 20 games per year. The season typically starts on labour day. Each year. All games are simply tests and no union champion is declared. Typically, the schedule is divided into a fall and spring season.
The name was changed in 2022 to the Cascadia Masters Rugby Union or CMRU.
A new logo was also acquired, the existing union colours remained as does the union theme. Green represents the coastal and interior forests of our region and Blue representing the Pacific and inland region of Cascadia. Mountains are also a prominent feature of the logos.
Our clubs are located in the geological region called Cascadia.
