Ottawa to become home of new transatlantic professional rugby team
Posted Mar 4, 2020 09:35:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A new professional rugby team is set to be introduced in Ottawa.
It will be the world's second ever transatlantic professional sports team, with its inclusion in the European based Rugby Football League (RFL) — the same league that the Toronto Wolfpack joined in 2017.
The Ottawa team will play all of its home games at TD Place Stadium, starting in the 2021 season. Its away matches will take place in England, Wales, and France.
Ottawa Club Chairman Eric Perez, RFL Chairman Simon Johnson, British High Commissioner to Canada Susan Jane le Jeune d'Allegeershecqu and Ontario's Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Sport Lisa Macleod are set to unveil the team's branding, and provide details about the club at a press conference on Monday, March 9.
The RFL is celebrating its 125th anniversary this season.
The Toronto Wolfpack first played in third-tier League 1 in 2017, finished first, winning promotion to the second-tier RFL Championship. They were then regular season champions in both its first and second season in the RFL Championship. At the end of the 2019 season, the Wolfpack won promotion to the top tier Super League with a win in the Million Pound Game.
The Wolfpack has 52,000 fans on Facebook, as many as the RFL page itself has.
