TOP PROSPECT AILING
Patrick still plagued by injuries
Last week, Lyle Thompson packed up his family, a couple of friends and dozens of lacrosse sticks and drove more than 24 hours from his home in Upstate New York to the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
The 24-year-old lacrosse star wanted to see the demonstrations for himself, and he hoped he could lift spirits at the protesters’ campsite through his sport, known by the Iroquois as the medicine game.
He also brought his wife Amanda, their three daughters, fellow pro player Bill O’Brien and University of Albany head coach Scott Marr to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation near the border between North and South Dakota. The plan was to organize a lacrosse game.
“All I’m trying to do is spread awareness and help other people, help other people in this world,” Thompson said Tuesday from Syracuse, N.Y., near Onondaga Nation, where he grew up.
Protesters want to stop the completion of the 1,886-kilometre pipeline because of the potential effects on drinking water and the possible destruction of cultural artifacts. The Standing Rock Sioux also claim a stretch of land is owned by them under a nearly 150-year-old treaty.
Thompson arrived Nov. 22, less than a day after violence erupted.
The Iroquois created the sport of lacrosse, and believe it has both physical and spiritual healing properties. Thompson, who plays professionally for the National Lacrosse League’s Georgia Swarm and Major League Lacrosse’s Florida Launch, hoped to tap into that tradition at the protest site. More than 16 people joined Thompson, O’Brien and Marr on a field that had wooden posts as goals.
“It was really kind of a spiritual experience,” Marr said, “to be a part of the traditional sense of the game, playing for a cause, playing for a purpose, rather than playing for a win or a loss in a collegiate game.”