Whether you're an ogre or an artist, there's a place for you in Alaska rugby

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The Beached Belugas rugby team takes on the Fairbanks Dawgs during the Midnight Sun 7s rugby tournament at Davis Park in the Mountain View neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday June 18, 2016. (Bob Hallinen / Alaska Dispatch News)

Rob Manz is a big guy, so when he plays rugby, he plays in the front row as a prop, a position that relies more on size than skill.

You need to know that to understand why the strapping Army soldier spent part of last weekend sitting inside a kiddie swimming pool at Davis Park.

Dubbed the "Pool of Quiet Reflection," the waterless pool served as the penalty box for the Arctic Legion Rugby Club at last weekend's Midnight Sun 7s tournament. Players who embarrassed themselves or their team had to spend the first half of a game in the pool.

"You're emasculated for seven minutes, and at halftime you come out a better person," Manz said.

"I kicked the ball, and as a prop I'm not supposed to do finesse things, I'm supposed to do ogre things. Even though we scored on it, I had to go in."

Not every rugby team travels with a kiddie swimming pool, but most have a roster that boasts players of varying sizes and abilities. Ogres and artists, if you will.

"There's literally a position for every single body type," said Krystal Blair, the secretary for the Alaska Oosik Rugby Union.

The union oversees 13 teams — eight men's, five women's — that play the traditional game with 15 players to a side.

Players from many of those squads formed smaller teams for Saturday's Midnight Sun 7s tournament, which showcased the faster-paced version of rugby that will debut at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janiero.

The tournament drew 12 men's teams and five women's teams for a full day of lightning quick games. Rugby 7s features two seven-minute halves separated by a one-minute halftime, which is why the Midnight Sun tournament managed to play 38 games on two fields in a single day.

That's also why 20-year-old Alyssa Randall stayed on the grass, prone, after grounding the ball for a game-ending try for the Aurora Rams.

"Sevens is definitely more difficult," said Randall, an Eagle River woman who plays 15s for a club team at Gonzaga University. "It's the same size field with eight less people.

"That was a good seven minutes. I got my workout in."

Whether the game is 15s or 7s, rugby is a physical game that forges strong bonds between players, whether they are teammates or opponents. They engage in a contact sport played without pads, and when it's over they often share a beer or a laugh or both.

"It's a very social sport," said 52-year-old Ted Snider, a member of Anchorage's oldest team, the Bird Creek Barbarians.

Snider proceeded to tell the story of an Anchorage rugby player who never paid for a hotel room during a six-month trip to South America.

"He'd go into a town and find a rugby bar," Snider said.

Snider, who started playing rugby the summer after he graduated from West High, said the game's social aspects keep him playing year after year.

For the tournament, Snider wore his Barbarians shorts — the black ones with "Great Alaska Bush Company" written across the back — even though he played for a team called the Beached Belugas.

The Belugas were formed just for the tournament, and membership was restricted to guys who weighed more than 220 pounds. Suffice it to say they didn't win the tournament.

"We are a slow, old, fat team," Snider said, "and 7s rugby is a speed game."

The Aurora Rams claimed the women's championship, and the Manu Bears of Anchorage, a 15s team that split into two teams for the tournament, grabbed first and second place on the men's side.

Capturing third place among the men were the Yukon Gold Diggers of Whitehorse, Yukon, whose power road trip to Anchorage was the highlight of their season.

The Gold Diggers traveled with a team of 12 men and four women who hooked up with players from Fairbanks to form a team.

They left Whitehorse at 7 p.m. Thursday and got to Anchorage at noon Friday. On Friday night they camped in trailers and tents at Davis Park, where they were visited by a black bear with cubs.

"We were having some brews, and there's a bear," team member Bethanna Cavey said.

The team's plan was to be back in Whitehorse in time for everyone to go to work on Monday morning, which meant a long day of driving Sunday after a long day of rugby Saturday.

Not that anyone was complaining.

"We'd do it again in a heartbeat," said Mike Fancie, who said the Gold Diggers started planning their Alaska trip last season.

Fancie, a fit-looking 28-year-old, said he grew up playing hockey and soccer but neither of those sports clicked with him the way rugby does.

"It brings people together on and off the field," he said. "There's something for everybody, whether they're fast or slow, big or small.

"… For a lot of people, it's about the contact," Fancie said. "Other people like the tactical nature of it, how fluid and open-ended it is. And a lot just like the camaraderie. It makes you part of a community."

The two rugby fields at Davis Park turned into a community for Saturday's tournament. More than a dozen canopy tents were set up for various teams, which came equipped with food, drinks, fans, dogs and at least one kiddie swimming pool.

The action was intense and aggressive, filled with hard hits, swift ball movement, bursts of speed and gang tackles.

"It's a very tiring game," said Doug Stutzman of the Fairbanks Sundawgs. "Your lungs will be falling out at the end of the game."