WLA lacrosse: Five things to know for 2017
The Western Lacrosse Association plays its first slate of regular season games in the Lower Mainland this week, starting with the New Westminster Salmonbellies’ home opener against the Nanaimo Timbermen on Thursday (7 p.m.) at Queen’s Park Arena. Here are five things to look for with the seven-team Senior A box lacrosse loop.
n The WLA league champion will host the top team from Ontario this September in the Mann Cup, Canada’s national club championship. That has led to several high-end players flocking westward this summer. For instance, Kevin Crowley, a right-handed power-forward type, has signed with the Salmonbellies and will play summer lacrosse in B.C. for the first time since suiting up with his hometown Queen’s Park crew in 2013. Steve Priolo, a checker from St. Catharines, Ont., who comes in at 6-foot-5 and 234 pounds, is back with the Victoria Shamrocks after spending last season out east. Goaltender Aaron Bold, a Victoria native who was part of that Shamrock team alongside Priolo that won the 2015 Mann Cup, is slated to play in Victoria again, too, after playing Senior B with North Shore in 2016. How often players of this ilk suit up for their new squads is hard to gauge. Many higher-end types from the wintertime National Lacrosse League take the first few weeks of the WLA season off. Bold is with the Saskatchewan Rush, who are getting ready to take on the Georgia Swarm in the NLL final. He only played five regular season contests with Victoria in 2015. The New Westminster Record has reported that Crowley, who lives in Philadelphia and plays in the NLL with the New England Black Wolves, won’t join the Salmonbellies until June 27. He finished tied for third in the NLL in goals, bagging 45 in his 18 regular season games.
n The Maple Ridge Burrards won the WLA last season and advanced to the Mann Cup for the first time since 1990, when they played under the Vancouver Burrards banner and John Tavares was a Senior A rookie with the club. The Burrards, whose home opener is Sunday (6:45 p.m.) against the Burnaby Lakers, will be in the hunt again. They haven’t made sexy moves this winter, like bringing in a Crowley, but they added speedy transition specialist Jeff Cornwall in a trade with the Salmonbellies. He brings another facet to a big, mean, physical defensive corps that played so well in unison last year with goalie Frankie Scigliano. The Burrards also landed forward Matthew Dinsdale from the Coquitlam Adanacs, and he had chemistry in junior with fellow righty Ben McIntosh, who potted 31 goals in 16 WLA playoff games last season.
n Salmonbellies general manager Dan Richardson, who made a plethora of deals to help turn New Westminster into a team that went to three straight Mann Cups from 2008 to 2010, was busy this winter. He took the picks he received for Cornwall and packaged them with other selections to nab defender Brett Mydske and forwards Joel McCready and Nathan Stewart from the Langley Thunder. They also inked free-agent goalie Tye Belanger who, like McCready, was one of the stalwarts this NLL season for the Vancouver Stealth.
n The Lakers’ most noteworthy addition this off-season was adding GM and head coach Jim Milligan, who is best known in the West as bench boss Jamie Batley’s top assistant with the Stealth. That could change, though, if Burnaby can follow through on a trade with the Thunder that landed the WLA rights to Mark Matthews, a powerhouse lefty forward who is one of the main reasons that the Rush are shooting for a third straight NLL crown. For Matthews to show in Burnaby, they’d need to acquire his Canadian rights from Ontario’s Brooklin Redmen. If rumours of past deals are true, that would be a few thousand dollars.
n Victoria’s Corey Small has long been one of the game’s best pure lefty snipers, but it feels like the 30-yearold took a jump this winter in the NLL, putting put up 111 points for the Stealth, a boost from 84 points in 2016. Both campaigns saw him play 18 games. Could something similar be in store for the WLA this season? He was second in league scoring last year with 75 points in 15 regular season games. His career high in six seasons in Victoria is 86, which came in 18 games in 2013.