FAMILIAR OPPONENT
Loewen takes on former team
There's no way to sugar-coat it.
On a September day when Riley Loewen found out he had been traded from the Saskatchewan Rush, his National Lacrosse League employers for three years with whom he won two championship titles, he was one distraught young man.
“I remember it pretty well,” he recalled. "Obviously, I was shocked. I didn't really expect it. I was at work when it happened. My heart kind of sank right away.
"(Zack) Greer had just been traded and we were saying our goodbyes to him in one of our chat groups and an hour later (Rush GM Derek) Keenan was calling me and I kind of knew what it was about.”
The Calgary Roughnecks dealt a 2017 draft pick to the Rush for the 27-year-old, whom they hoped would fill a specific niche in their offence. On Saturday night (7 p.m.) at the Scotiabank Saddledome, Loewen will renew acquaintances with his old mates as the 'Necks (3-1) meet Saskatchewan (2-2) for the first time this regular season.
Despite his initial dismay, it didn't take Loewen long to come to grips with the situation.
“After thinking about it for a few hours, the rest of that day, I wasn't playing too much at the end of the season in Saskatoon. I thought coming to Calgary would be a better opportunity for myself,” he said. "So I started feeling a little bit better about it. Luckily, I already knew a bunch of guys on the team.”
One of those guys is head coach Curt Malawsky, whom he played for in junior.
“I felt he knew what kind of player I was and what I could bring to the team,” said Loewen, a project manager with a Vancouver plumbing company. "I'm not the guy who's going to get 100 points or anything like that. We have Curtis Dickson, Dane Dobbie, Jeff Shattler, guys who are going to put up those big points, your superstars. Coming in, I wanted to just work to help get Dobbie and Shattler open as much as possible as well as make my own game better.”
Malawsky has his own visions of Loewen.
“I would say he's a Sherpa-type player: he does a lot of the heavy lifting on the offensive side that creates space for a lot of the other guys,” the coach said. "He's a big body, I think he taxes the other teams' defences. He's got good hands when he gets in there. If he scores goals, great. But if he's able to put the other team's defenders in positions where it's going to give our other goal scorers opportunities, then he's doing his job.”
In his first four games with the Riggers, Loewen has collected three goals and four assists and has meshed well with his offensive unit.
“This offence, from what some of the guys have even been saying, it's one of the best offences they've had in recent years,” said Loewen. "We have a lot of guys who like moving the ball, everyone's really unselfish.”
Calgary will face its greatest test Saturday as the Rush have been their biggest nemesis. Last season, in fact, it was all Saskatchewan as the Rush swept their six meetings.
But Calgary is playing as well as anyone right now, while the real litmus test is how they fare against the two-time defending champs.