There are many Winter Training programs available for 2026 and I wanted to give you all the rundown so you are aware of what is going on.
1. Waterloo County Winter Academy
2. Ontario Blues Development Academy
3. Southwest Ontario Rugby Union Winter Academy
4. Upright Rugby Winter Academy

1. Waterloo County Winter Academy
Waterloo County will be running a Winter Training Academy from Saturday, January 10th to Saturday, April 4th. It will be run between the indoor field at RIM Park and the bubbled Laurier Stadium. All Waterloo County players who played U14, U16 or U18 in 2025 are eligible to participate.
RIM Park: January 10 to February 7 from 4-6pm
Laurier Dome: February 14 to April 4 from 5-7pm
12 sessions - break for March Break

We will focus on :
Rugby skills
Development of decision making in game situations
Sprint training
Benchmarking athletic performance (once at the beginning and once at the end)

Improve your skills and develop into a better, smarter, faster and stronger rugby athlete for the 2026 High School season in April and for the Club season in June!

Cost will be $250 per athlete.

We will release this soon! Stay tune with how you sign up.

2. Ontario Blues Development Academy (OBDA)
Rugby Ontario (RO) is running the OBDA from the University of Guelph Fieldhouse again. If you participated in the combine on Saturday, October 4th, you are eligible to be selected. If you did not, you will not be selected and cannot attend. This is an invite only training that is run from January to April over 10 sessions.

Dates and times are not confirmed yet. When I have them, I will post them here. I do know that there will be 10 sessions and they will run on Saturdays. These sessions will probably overlap somewhat with the Waterloo County Winter Academy.

Selections will be circulated by RO in the next few weeks. Cost will be in the $500-600 range.

3. Southwest Ontario Rugby Union Winter Academy
The SWORU Winter Academy will be run from the London Area. The focus will be on skills and decision making in gymnasium sessions. Sprint training will be a focus with 3 sprint training sessions over the course of the Academy. The third focus will be Strength and Conditioning (S&C) sessions at EPIC.

The twelve gymnasium sessions will be run on either Saturdays or Sundays between Medway and Beal High Schools in the London Area. There will be seven S&C sessions at Elite Performance and Injury Centre (EPIC) right after the skill sessions. The athletes will have a program that they can take with them to use at home or at their local gym.

There will also be one turf session in February (TBD). Sessions will run from November 22nd to March 6th.

The cost for the SWORU Winter Academy is $250. More info will be released shortly.

4. Upright Rugby Winter Academy
Upright Rugby was the original Academy in our area. They gave opportunity to many players to play 7's while on tour to New York, Tampa and LA. They are another option if the others are full.

Block A is from November 8 to December 27 at the University of Guelph Field house from 5-7pm. This is a good alternative if someone is craving some more rugby before our Academy starts up locally. The cost is about $550.

https://go.teamsnap.com/forms/499087

Block B will be from January to March and will probably be about the same cost.

If you have any questions about these 4 Academies, please let me know. I am happy to help answer questions!

Trevor Williams
Director of Junior Rugby