The American Raptors is a professional

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

team based in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality ...

of Glendale in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. The team plays in the transcontinental

Super Rugby Americas Super Rugby Americas (SRA) will be the new franchise rugby tournament format in America, and the first season will begin on February 18, 2023 after efforts by World Rugby. It will be organized and led by Sudamérica Rugby, the highest rugby en ...

competition . Established as the Glendale Raptors in 2006, the team was a founding member of

Major League Rugby Major League Rugby (MLR or USMLR) is a professional rugby union competition and the top-level championship for clubs in North America. In the 2022 season it was contested by thirteen teams: twelve from the United States and one from Canada. Of ...

in 2017, but they played there only three years, competing as the Colorado Raptors in their final shortened season of 2020 before withdrawing from the league. Following withdrawal from

, the team renamed themselves the Colorado XOs turning their attention to player development of players originally playing other sports, before becoming the American Raptors in 2021.

History

The Glendale Raptors were founded as an amateur rugby club in 2006. They won the national Championship in 2011, and were back-to-back winners of the

Pacific Rugby Premiership The Pacific Rugby Premiership (officially called the Samurai Sportswear Pacific Rugby Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is the highest level club rugby competition in the USA. It serves as the Division I league for the Pacific North Conference ...

in 2015 and 2016. In 2017, the Raptors were accepted into the professional

competition. The amateur Glendale teams were renamed the Glendale Merlins before the inaugural MLR season in 2018. The Raptors finished the MLR regular season in first place in 2018, but lost the

Championship final In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

. In 2019, the Raptors finished the regular season in sixth place and did not play in the finals. The team was renamed the Colorado Raptors ahead of the 2020 season but the season was shortened and eventually cancelled due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Withdrawal from Major League Rugby

On April 9, 2020, the Raptors announced that they would withdraw from Major League Rugby, effective May 2, 2020,Petersen, Will, "Updated: Colorado Raptors withdraw from Major League Rugby," 9news.com, April 10, 2020 Accessed March 27, 2021
/ref> the first team to do so. Their announcement explained their withdrawal by saying that "our greater responsibility lies in the development of American players who can win the World Cup for the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

." Asked to explain how the Raptors withdrawing from the league would help to develop American rugby players, Glendale

City Manager A city manager is an official appointed as the administrative manager of a city, in a " Mayor–council government" council–manager form of city government. Local officials serving in this position are sometimes referred to as the chief ex ...

Linda Cassaday said that MLR had been founded with a core mission of developing American rugby players and originally had limited teams to three foreign players, although this expanded to five players before the first season began in 2018. MLR had expanded from seven teams in 2018 to 12 in 2020 without having enough American players to fill out rosters and had raised the ceiling on foreign players to 10 per team. The Raptors believed that both this overall number of foreign players and the higher proportion of foreign to American players no longer best served the goal of developing American players who could compete successfully in the

Rugby World Cup The Rugby World Cup is a men's rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams. The tournament is administered by World Rugby, the sport's international governing body. The winners are awarded the Webb ...

, and therefore chose to withdraw from the league to better focus their efforts on the development of American players who could compete on an international stage. In June 2022 Raptors played in Challenge Cup of the Americas against Canadians

UBC Old Boys Ravens UBC Old Boys Ravens is a Canadian rugby union team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded in 1974, Ravens was formed by graduates from the University of British Columbia. The club currently competes in, and is the two-time defending champi ...

and South Americans

Peñarol Rugby Peñarol is a Uruguayan professional rugby union team based in Montevideo. The team was founded in 2019 to compete in Súper Liga Americana de Rugby and is the rugby section of the Peñarol sports club. With its participation, Peñarol became the ...

and Jaguares XV.

Current squad

The American Raptors squad for the

2023 Super Rugby Americas season 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societie ...

is: * Senior 15s internationally capped players are listed in bold. * * denotes players qualified to play for on dual nationality or residency grounds.

Head coaches

* David Williams (2018–2019) * Peter Borlase (2019–2020) * Paul Emerick (2022) * Sarah Chobot (2023-current)

Captains

* Shaun Davies (2018–2019) * Luke White (2019–2020)

Records

Season standings

Home field

The team plays at Infinity Park, the first rugby-specific, municipally-owned stadium in the United States.

Sponsorship

Honors

**Runner-up:

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

**Playoff appearances:

2018 season

° = Preseason game
°° = Playoff Semifinal
°°° = Final at

Torero Stadium Torero Stadium is a 6,000-seat multi-purpose stadium on the West Coast of the United States, west coast of the United States, located on the campus of the University of San Diego in San Diego, California. Opened in 1961, it serves as the home of ...

in San Diego, California

2019 season

Exhibition

Regular season

2020 season

On March 12, 2020, MLR announced the season would go on hiatus immediately for 30 days due to fears surrounding the

2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. It was cancelled the following week

Regular season

References

External links

* {{American Raptors squad American Raptors Major League Rugby teams Rugby union teams in Colorado Sports teams in Denver 2017 establishments in Colorado Rugby clubs established in 2017

History

Withdrawal from Major League Rugby

Current squad

Head coaches

Captains

Records

Season standings

Home field

Sponsorship

Honors

2018 season

2019 season

Exhibition

Regular season

2020 season

Regular season

See also

References

External links