Rugby is returning to Billings, and it has been aided by the helping hands of a long-time local who built training and exercise equipment for the new teams. There are two age groups participating in Billings’ re-emerging sport. There is a bracket for younger kids, ages 4-10, which meets for practice in Rose Park on Wednesday evenings, and a bracket for older kids, ages 11-14, which meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
If any kids are interested in joining the teams, they are encouraged to observe one of the practices appropriate for their age, and then further steps will be decided. For those who are interested or have questions, more information can be found by calling the General Manager for the Magic City 7’s Rugby Club, John Dahl, at (406) 855-3146.
“It’s flown under the radar for the most part,” stated Dahl. “Rugby has been around Billings for fourteen years. It started with a boys’ high school team and a girls’ team formed shortly thereafter. Lots of travel was involved,” added Dahl. “It wasn’t enough just to build a team, we had to travel to make games. We spent so much money on gas. It cost $3,000-$4,000 a year for just the fuel to get the families to the games. Then lacrosse came in, and the program had to shut down.”
“We took a step back,” said Dahl. “We wanted to build a new system with local teams that could compete against each other.” With that sentiment, the Magic City 7’s Rugby Club was formed. “We’re working on building those teams up now with the help of local support,” added Dahl. One thing that the new club needed was a piece of exercise equipment called a scrum sled, and Dahl knew who to reach out to for its fabrication, Mike Johnson.
Johnson has lived locally for over forty years and has known Dahl for some time. When Dahl approached him with the request of making a scrum sled, Johnson was met with some unique challenges. “I searched all over the internet and could find plenty of pictures, but I could not find any dimensions,” stated Johnson. “I had pictures to reference, but no sense of scale. They (Magic City 7’s) ordered some pads for the sled which I used for reference.” However, the best measurements came when he had Dahl and another person get into a rugby scrum position so that he could use a measuring tape to get a true sense of scale. “One of the biggest problems I had to figure out was how to make a sled that would fit all ages. They asked me to make it heavy, so I found some of the heaviest metal I could. I think I might have made it a little too heavy, but it’s better to be too heavy than too light apparently. But I can say that I’ve made a scrum sled now, though!”
