Article content continued

“We’ve had initial investor discussions and there’s plenty of appetite to get involved. We’ve had a great response from individuals in and around the rugby community and from sports-related companies.”

The men have already identified the person who will lead Vancouver’s rugby operations: Curry Hitchborn, who’s coached UBC’s highly successful men’s rugby team for the past five years, and is set to coach Seattle in its inaugural season.

Hitchborn — he’s being “doing rugby seven days a week for 10 years” — said the challenge of starting a new team in a relatively minor sport in a big city like Seattle or Vancouver is big, but not daunting.

“We have some very good infrastructure (already in Vancouver),” he said. “People here understand rugby already, but we need to appeal to sports people, we need to appeal to people who may just have a passing interest.

“Rugby may not seem that popular on the surface but everyone knows someone.”

He pointed to the great successes that have been the Canada Sevens and last November’s Canada-New Zealand Maori match, where more than 30,000 people have descended upon B.C. Place Stadium to watch rugby.

Hitchborn is confident that presented correctly, rugby can find its niche.

“You have to have money, you have to have expertise, you have to know the climate, you have to know the players,” he said, suggesting he, Harrison and Balfour tick off all those boxes. But they also know how important community connections will be, whether that’s with high school players and coaches, local clubs or business people who have past rugby connections.