On Nov 14., 2021, I stood on the sidelines at Nixon field and watched the Queen’s women’s rugby team win their first National Championship.

Standing there, soaked head to toe from rain that had pelted me and hundreds of other fans for over two hours, I came to one conclusion when the final whistle blow came, and the Gaels were crowned champions:

 ‘I am so incredibly lucky to be here.’

For me, that game was more than just a win for the home team—and a national championship, to boot. It was the crown jewel among a semester’s worth of once-in-a-lifetime moments I’d been lucky enough to experience as a Gaels fan and The Journal’s Sports Editor.

And, along with cementing what I plan to be a lifetime’s worth of fandom for Gael’s rugby, soccer, and football—don’t worry, winter varsity teams are getting there—that game also made me realize something else.

U Sports is just as entertaining as the NCAA.

Now, for those who don’t know, the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) is the governing body that oversees American college sports. It is to American varsity athletes what U Sports is to Canadian varsity athletes, with a number of notable differences—the most glaring of which being its size—to distinguish them.

Spanning the US, the NCAA has a staggering 1,268 member institutions recognized in competitive sport. U Sports has 56.

The other huge difference between the NCAA and U Sports is its cultural following. Take March Madness, for example, the annual single-elimination basketball tournament which decides the NCAA championship.

In its modern form, March Madness consists of 68 participating teams and generates somewhere around $900 million in revenue for the NCAA each year. From 2013-19, the tournament had an average of 10.5 million viewers.

Evidently, U Sports doesn’t have an answer for that kind of popularity, nor the practice of American fans filling out their college stadiums week-to-week with enthusiasm and loyalty.

But bear with me here, do we need to?

As someone who regularly tunes into NCAA football games, I don’t watch them because they have better stadiums, more loyal fanbases, or even because their coverage is leaps and bounds ahead of ours—although I will admit it’s nice. I tune in because it shows hardworking, talented athletes going out on the field of play and giving it everything they’ve got.

And, to my original point, that is the exact same thing that occurs at U Sports games.

True, they might be less flashy, and they might be on a smaller scale, but the games that Canadian varsity athletes play—and the ones they win, especially—are no less enjoyable to watch than if our neighbours to the South were the ones wearing the jerseys.

I’m not saying that U Sports is necessarily as easy or convenient to find entertaining, by any means. Speaking from experience, sometimes it can take a while to truly come to appreciate the beauty in being able to walk to Nixon and cheer from the bleachers.

Yet, after a semester of finally bleeding tricolour, I defy anyone to stand where I stood on Nov. 14 last year and tell me any other rugby game in North America would’ve been more fun to watch.

Go on. I’ll wait