Heart-breaking end to debut season with Outlaws
Zach Currier has racked up the frequent flyer miles this summer.
On Saturday, Currier was in Frisco, Texas playing for the Denver Outlaws in the Major League Lacrosse championship game. On Tuesday, he was helping his hometown Peterborough Century 21 Lakers to a Game 1 win over the Six Nations Chiefs at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena.
Soon after completing his collegiate career at Princeton University in the spring Currier was playing in the pro field lacrosse league after Denver made him their firstround pick in the college draft. He’s played weekends for the Outlaws and made most of the Lakers’ regular season games.
“At one point, about the third week of July, I was on more flights than there were days of the month because of all the connecting flights,” Currier said on Wednesday on a break from a job site where he works as a geotechnical field supervisor for WSP, an engineering consulting service. “Since June I’ve racked up almost 20,000 (frequent flyer miles).”
Currier’s rookie MLL season ended in disappointment as the Outlaws gave up seven unanswered goals in a 17-12 loss to the Ohio Machine. Currier had a goal and three assists in the game.
“It was definitely disappointing. We fought hard and our guys played well. We didn’t lose from a lack of effort,” Currier said. “Our guys played hard. It was a really good Ohio team that was pretty determined to not let last year’s events happen again.”
Denver beat Ohio by a goal in last year’s final.
There was little time to dwell on the loss as he was right back into another championship final with the Lakers.
“I love playing lacrosse and I love playing for the Lakers and I’ve been welcomed in Denver so you couldn’t ask for a better scenario if you ask me,” he said.
The Lakers enter Game 2 of their best-of-seven MSL final against Six Nations with a 1-0 lead. Game 2 is at 8 p.m. Thursday at the Memorial Centre and Game 3 is at 7 p.m. Sunday, also at the PMC.
Currier says the intensity of the MLL and MSL finals are comparable.
“It’s crazy to say they are comparable when one is the Super Bowl of its sport and the other is more like a playoff round but it’s definitely comparable. Guys are fighting and clawing and the Six Nations and Peterborough rivalry is alive and well, as it always has been,” he said.
Currier admits it’s an adjustment going from the field to box lacrosse.
“It’s challenging in a lot of different ways. I’d say it hurts my box game more than my field game,” he said. “I play defence in box and field lacrosse is a lot more paying attention to the ball and knowing where the ball is and sliding and recovering. In box, if your man doesn’t have the ball you’re looking at your man a lot more. I catch myself ball watching a decent amount in box when I shouldn’t be but for field it does nothing but help my game.”
The Lakers overcame an early 4-0 deficit to pull out the Game 1 win and they’re hoping to build off that, he said.
“We’re looking to come back Thursday better than we were (Tuesday) and learn from our mistakes and keep rolling for Thursday and Sunday,” Currier said.