ALEX DIXON Enlarge Image

Tom McKee leads the charge for the Prairie Wolf Pack in Canadian Rugby Championship action. The Wolf Pack was 2-0 heading into its Sept. 4 match in Newfoundland.

Wherever Tom McKee has been in the world — and the list is a lengthy one — his first order of business has always been to find a local rugby club.

So when he arrived in Winnipeg in 2008 and took up residence in St. James, it wasn’t long before McKee was a proud member of the Sturgeon Creek Rowdies.

"It’s the first thing I do anywhere," said the 27-year-old native of England. "Even when I was travelling in Cambodia. It’s an instant social group as much as anything."

McKee has been doing plenty of travelling lately as a member of the Prairie Wolf Pack, an elite team of players from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta that is competing in the four-team Canadian Rugby Championship.

The Wolf Pack — which plays its home games in Calgary — won its first two games over pre-tournament favourites B.C. and Ontario, and is poised to play in the final on Sept. 18.

"The coach watched a few of our games in Manitoba and invited a few of us to go out to the team trials in Calgary," said McKee, who has been flying back and forth for games since making the squad. "I’ve been very happy to see the level of play. It’s fantastic."

The Wolf Pack’s roster features five players with experience playing for Canada. McKee said one of the reasons for putting on the tournament — now in its second year — is to unearth players from across the country who can one day represent Canada.

While that would be an "absolute dream" for McKee, he’s quick to acknowledge that most of the top players are younger than him and have "been on the radar a lot longer."

Since his father introduced him to the sport as a five-year-old boy in England, rugby has been in McKee’s blood.

He spent three years at the academy of the Northampton Saints of the English premier league, and a year in Sydney, Australia, at the Ramdwick club’s academy.

Then it was back to England, where he reached the British university finals — played at Twickenham Stadium, the shrine of English rugby — as member of Northumbria University.

"We lost, but it didn’t matter," he said. "It was just such an honour and a dream come true to play there."

After playing a few games with the premier league’s Newcastle Falcons and finishing university, McKee grabbed his backpack and travelled Asia before ending up in New Zealand.

There he checked another item off his rugby bucket list, playing against famed All-Black Andrew Hore.

"It was an awesome thing to be able to say that I’ve done," he said.

In New Zealand, McKee met a woman and they hit it off. She was from a place he had never heard of: Winnipeg.

"My visa was running out, so we flew into Calgary and drove to Winnipeg," he said. "I saw all those mountains and thought this is great. Then we drove off and I didn’t see them again."

Playing rugby in his new home has been a different type of experience for McKee. Unlike England or New Zealand, where kids take up the sport when they’re barely old enough to walk, Canadians tend to find rugby in their teens.

"There’s some very good players here," he said. "There’s some great athletes from football and hockey, and the passion’s definitely there. There’s some big boys and they know how to make contact with one another."

avi.saper@canstarnews.com