Rush players reach out to community youth
NLL team hopes growing game can help boost home attendance
Win or lose, Edmonton’s toptwo sports teams are flanked by certainties that they can almost take for granted.
The Oilers will always be the talk of the city, whether they’re building a dynasty or feeling the drip-drop of life in the NHL Western Conference’s cellar.
The Eskimos, whether they’re rattling off Grey Cup wins or dragging themselves through a historically bad season, are a fixture in the community, where a sub30,000 crowd is a legitimate topic of conversation.
Life is different for Edmonton’s only professional team with a wining record.
Four weeks into the National Lacrosse League season, the Edmonton Rush is a perfect 4-0, riding the high of a come-from-behind win over the Stealth in Vancouver, where a 7-2 halftime deficit was spun 180 degrees to a 9-8 victory.
On Friday, like many other days during the lacrosse season, members of the Rush were at an elementary school planting the seeds of the game with its youngest possible fans. Forwards Mark Matthews and Jarrett Davis, along with transition player Jeremy Thompson, were at Ormsby elementary school in Edmonton’s west end, taking part in the Walk With Us lacrosse program that teaches positive lifestyles and looks to grow the game among aboriginal youth. They gave out 20 lacrosse sticks on Friday, and after the kids register their sticks through the program, the Rush players can track the youngsters’ progress in the game.
“Whenever you can get out to help some people who have never played before and never played the sport, it’s good, and what this Walk With Us program is, it’s pretty special,” said Matthews, standing in the Ormsby gym while a couple of dozen players chased balls around with their new lacrosse sticks.
“To give away thousands of sticks and help out a lot of families that can’t afford a stick or whatever the case may be, it’s great to be a part of it.”
Thompson, 27, grew up playing the game with the Onondaga Nation in New York state, where the game takes on a spiritual, community-growing role. He’d like to see that happen with the sport in Edmonton and the other places across North America he takes the game.
“I was here a couple of times last year and a couple of times this year and got to work with the kids one-onone, not just with lacrosse,” he said. “But kind of taking it away from lacrosse and focusing it on ‘What do you want? What’s your purpose in life?’
“I kind of look back on my life, how I conducted my life — more or less the mistakes I made — so I kind of went off that and I guess I feel I have a purpose in that I’m here for the youth. I’ve had that sense. I like being around kids, so I go around what feels good for me in that way.”
It’s a worthwhile program that any of Edmonton’s pro teams would take part in for their own sport, but the Rush’s involvement isn’t born just out of community outreach; it’s a necessity. Despite streaking into a new-found prosperous territory in the standings, a good bump in attendance at Rexall Place certainly wouldn’t hurt the team, specifically its owner, Bruce Urban.
Helping the team to its best start, Matthews and Thompson are hoping that might be something to lure some win-hungry Edmontonians into the building for Saturday’s 7 p.m. game against the two-time defending NLL champion Rochester Knighthawks.
“It’s huge for us,” Thompson said of the 4-0 start. “I knew something big was coming this year because of where we left off last year (a first-round playoff exit after a 9-7 season).
“We had a chip on our shoulder going into this season and, so far, what I’ve noticed in the locker-room, on the floor, off the floor, at the team dinners, is the team is really in tune with one another.
“That’s what it’s all about. Lacrosse is a unit sport. You come together as a team, as a unit it’s not an I or me kind of thing. It grows off of that, really.”
A big hockey fan, Matthews often attends Oilers games and wishes the team the best on the ice, but he knows his own team’s winning ways could be the other ingredient needed to make lacrosse finally blossom in Edmonton.
“(The Oilers are) kind of Edmonton’s team and, hopefully, that can switch over to us here,” he said.
“And if we could get half the crowds that they get and grow the sport a little bit more, that would be great.”