A rugby juggernaut who helped the Brock Badgers win a provincial championship is receiving an honour “beyond his wildest dreams.”<\/p>\n
Ray Barkwill will be inducted into the Niagara Falls Sports Wall of Fame at the Gale Centre on Sunday, Jan. 26 at 2 p.m. The 31st annual ceremony is open to the public.<\/p>\n
Barkwill (BSc \u201810), who grew up in Niagara Falls, said he never thought an achievement like this was possible, citing Brock University and others as instrumental in his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt couldn\u2019t be done without the help of my friends, family and coaches over the years,\u201d he said. \u201cParticularly in the earlier years with my parents, Chris Hodgson, Brock University, the Niagara Rugby Club and Rugby Ontario. They all played an incredible part in supporting me and helping me achieve my dreams in being a professional rugby player and towards playing for Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last April, Barkwill announced his retirement from the sport at the age of 38.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very proud of where I\u2019m from and of what rugby has given to me and what I\u2019ve gotten out of rugby, but also the success that I\u2019ve had in the game,\u201d he said. \u201cPersonally, it means a lot to be recognized by your peers and from other respected, decorated athletes within Niagara Falls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barkwill’s passion for rugby started as a high school student where he joined the Niagara Wasps.\u00a0He then earned a spot on the Niagara Thunder of the Canadian Super League.<\/p>\n
In 2007, Barkwill co-captained the Badgers to a 22-6 win over Queen\u2019s University to hoist the school\u2019s first Ontario University Athletics (OUA) men\u2019s rugby championship.\u00a0He was named the OUA finals MVP.<\/p>\n
After graduating, he went on to study and play in Australia. Barkwill turned professional with the Western Force of the Super Rugby Competition for the 2012 season before returning to Canada, where he played for the Ontario Blues rugby team, winning five national championships.<\/p>\n
Barkwill is a three-time Canadian Rugby Championship winner and won the 2017 Shield Award as Most Inspirational Player as awarded by members of Canada\u2019s Men\u2019s Team.\u00a0In 2018, he also helped the Seattle Seawolves win the Major League Rugby title.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis honour symbolizes not giving up and work hard,\u201d said Barkwill. \u201cI think it teaches how to persevere towards achieving your goals, which make up the foundations of rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A rugby juggernaut who helped the Brock Badgers win a provincial championship is receiving an honour “beyond his wildest dreams.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":62829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,4,58],"tags":[256,624,1585,5702,8536],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62828"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62886,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62828\/revisions\/62886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}