Nathan Hirayama readily admits rugby was not his favourite sport before the age of 16. He loved playing soccer, hockey, and baseball on club teams in Richmond, where he was born and raised, as well as high school basketball. Rugby was farther down the list.

That changed at Richmond’s Hugh McRoberts Secondary. It helped that his father Gary, a member of Canada’s national rugby team from 1977-82, was a teacher there and coached the high school’s rugby team. It was there that Nathan fell in love with the culture of rugby and began a path that took him charging towards goal lines on pitches around the world and ended with Nathan regarded as one of Canada’s all-time greatest rugby sevens players.

Nathan had never been to Victoria before choosing to attend UVIC mostly just to play on coach Doug Tate’s perennially strong Vikes rugby squad. By then he’d also played on various age-level provincial and national fifteens teams; remarkably his first real exposure to sevens was his first national team try-out when he made the Canadian team as an 18-year-old in 2006. With his debut Nathan and Garry became the first father and son to both play on Canada’s national rugby team. Nathan remained a fixture of the national squad until 2021, while also playing on the national fifteens team from 2007-15. There he accumulated 23 international caps and scored 47 points, while also representing Canada at three Rugby World Cups (2007, 2011, 2015).

In Nathan’s 15 years with the Canadian sevens side, he simply rewrote the record book. He currently stands as Canada’s all-time leader in match appearances (363), points scored (1859, almost double the next closest), tries (147), and conversions (559, more than double next closest). He also ranks as the third-highest all-time scorer in the worldwide history of HSBC SVNS play (formerly World Rugby Sevens).

The profile of sevens surged in Canada in the 2010s and Nathan was leading a strong wave of Canadian players responsible for that. In 2017 he led Canada to its first and to date only World Rugby Sevens Series Cup Final victory in Singapore, receiving Player of the Final honours. One year later Nathan won the World Rugby Sevens Series overall scoring title. Along the way he helped Canada win two Pan American Games gold medals (2011, 2015) and one silver (2019), while representing Canada at three Commonwealth Games.

Nathan capped his career with perhaps his greatest honour, selected as Canadian Olympic team Opening Ceremony flagbearer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. As co-captain of the Canadian men’s rugby sevens team at those Games, he led Canada to the quarterfinals while scoring 19 points.

Written and researched by Jason Beck, Curator of the BC Sports Hall of Fame.