A TERRACE RCMP officer brought home a silver medal from the World Police and Fire Games in her first time there.
Kendra Felkar played rugby on Team Canada West at the event in Belfast, Ireland and was the only B.C. player, and one of only two RCMP members, on the squad.
“It was pretty cool. It was neat to win a medal and win a medal playing rugby with the team of incredible women in law enforcement and firefighting,” she said.
“It was a really good team. We gelled really fast and we all got along.”
The team played six games over two days with few substitute players as they only had seven players.
She said she’d like to think the team came close to winning the gold medal in its final game against Garda, the Irish home team, who won 24-7.
“It was an amazing experience and really, really cool to play rugby on another country’s soil on another continent,” said Felkar.
“[There were] amazing facilities and the people over there were so kind and just amazing.”
Women’s rugby is only in its second year at the games.
Felkar ended up on the team after finding the woman who introduced women’s rugby at the previous games and who asked her why she hadn’t played on the team before.
“Because I had no idea it existed,” said Felkar about why.
She emailed back and forth and was asked to come out to join the team.
She wasn’t able to play in any of the team’s warmup tournaments but she’s been playing rugby for seven years and coached the last three or four years.
Felkar is thinking about going to the next games in two years, which will be in Fairfax, Virginia.