Several players of Canada’s World Cup team have remained in Kamaishi to help the local community recover from the impact of typhoon Hagibis.
Canada were set to play their final pool game against Namibia in Kamaishi on Sunday, but the game was cancelled and a draw declared due to the expected impact of the typhoon. Both Canada and Namibia ended the tournament without a win.
Hagibis hit Kamaishi early on Sunday and has, to date, resulted in the deaths of at least 23 people and cut the power to nearly half-a-million homes.
“Amazing scenes”: Canadian rugby players helped clean up damage caused by Typhoon Hagibis in Japan after their final World Cup match was canceled due to the deadly storm.
“More than a game, it’s the values behind it,” Rugby Canada wrote. https://t.co/CTC7dVnDvH pic.twitter.com/FwEKmNieta
— ABC News (@ABC) October 15, 2019
Despite Canada’s early exit from the tournament, a number of their players decided to extend their stay in Japan.
‘Four of us are staying on tomorrow to do a community barbecue,’ captain Tyler Aardron said. ‘There’s a bunch of Canadian guys that have rented a house here, made it a “Canada House”, so we’ll do whatever we can to help.
‘We were hoping that we would just go out and mingle, interact and just get to know some people but it looks like we might have other things to pitch in. What we want to do today, if we can, is get out in the community and help. We’ve been hosted so well. We want to give back all we can.’
Two World Cup games were scheduled to be held in the remote town, over 500km from Tokyo, in a bid to help region after it was hit by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Uruguay’s win over Fiji, one of the upsets of the World Cup, came in the town earlier in the tournament.
Photo: Reuters
