Rugby Canada has named former Hockey Canada executive Shawn Bullock its new high-performance director.
Bullock, who has served as a consultant to Rugby Canada since September 2022, comes from Nordiq Canada — the governing federation for cross-country skiing in Canada — where in May he was named interim high performance director.
He was with Hockey Canada from 2008 to 2020 and led Canada’s junior team to gold at the 2018 IIHF World Junior Championship in Buffalo. Five members of that team were later charged with and found not guilty of sexual assault in connection to an incident in a London, Ont., hotel in June 2018 following a Hockey Canada gala celebrating the players’ championship run.
Rugby Canada chief executive officer Nathan Bombrys says Bullock is the right man to continue the work started by Stephen Aboud, who stepped down earlier this year.
“We’ve kind of got the blueprints. We need a master-builder,” said Bombrys. “I just think his experience, his leadership … He’s really well-placed to help us build this out now.”
Aboud joined Rugby Canada in May 2023 after six years with the Italian federation as head of technical direction for the development of players and coaches. Before that, he spent 26 years with the Irish Rugby Football Union in a variety of roles.
Aboud announced in February he was leaving Rugby Canada and was rejoining the Italian Rugby Federation. He said he made the decision to leave in order to be closer to his family in his native Ireland. The Italian federation subsequently reached out and offered him a job.
“(Aboud) built out a technical model and unpacked it with a lot of our provinces,” said Bombrys. “Those blueprints need to be built out.”
That includes player pathways and coach education. Bullock is also looking to take as much administrative work as he can off the Canadian coaches, so they can focus on coaching.
The rugby landscape is changing, with pluses and minuses for Canada.
At the 15s level, Canada looks to benefit from more fixtures via the World Rugby Nations Cup for the men and the WXV Global Series for the women. But contraction in Major League Rugby, combined with more restrictive roster rules, has also made for fewer openings for Canadian men in the North American pro league.
Changes in the HSBC SVNS series have pushed back the Canadian men’s bid to get back to the top tier after being relegated in June 2024.
“When there’s change, there’s opportunity … and how do you take advantage of change,” said Bullock. “Sometimes being nimble and looking for opportunity can really put you in an advantage when some organizations may not see the opportunity in front of us.”
Both Bullock and Bombrys hope to expand ties with USA Rugby, leading to more competition between the two countries.
“We have partner to the south that we really need to take advantage of,” said Bullock, citing women hockey’s Rivalry Series as an example.
He also noted that Nordiq Canada’s top athletes are headed to the U.S. Olympic trials in January.
With former Canada women’s sevens coach Jack Hanratty now in charge of the U.S. women’s 15s side, Rugby Canada may have an ally when it comes to more collaboration.
Bullock, who served as a high-performance consultant to Biathlon Canada from February 2021 to May 2022, is set to take up his new role with Rugby Canada in early January.
A native of Wainwright, Alta., he joined Hockey Alberta after graduating from the University of Alberta. He spent nine years with the provincial organization, moving from working at the grassroots level to its high performance.
Bullock spent 12 years at Hockey Canada, spending close to 10 years as manager of hockey operations/national teams. He was promoted to director of men’s national teams in July 2018 and remained in the role until October 2020.
Bullock called the junior hockey sexual assault charges “a tremendously huge black mark on the game itself and Hockey Canada,” saying it was “very difficult for me personally and my family.”
“I want to make it clear that I was not responsible for those 22 athletes and the staff members that were from the world juniors at the gala. I was a guest. I want to make sure that people understand that that never happened when I was responsible for the program.”
Bullock said his “only role was to contact the athletes and the staff to let them know that there was a third-party investigation.”
Married with two children, Bullock shares the family homestead with four horses, a miniature donkey and two cats.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 17, 2025.
Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press
