Goalie worth every Penney
New West netminder piled up awards, now leads his team into the league final vs. Victoria
Eric Penney continues to be money.
The 21-year-old goaltender looked like a veteran this winter when he had to pinch-hit for injured Vancouver Stealth starter Tyler Richards and he’s followed that up this summer by leading the New Westminster Salmonbellies to the Western Lacrosse Association best-of-seven finale, where they’ll face the highly favoured Victoria Shamrocks starting Friday at the Q Centre in Victoria. On Wednesday, the WLA announced its regular-season awards and Penney was honoured three times. The Rexdale, Ont., native landed a spot on the league’s first all-star team, as well as copping the Leo Nicholson Award as outstanding goalie and a share of the Ed Bailey Award as rookie of the year along with Langley Thunder 26-goal man Anthony Malcolm.
Curtis Hodgson, a veteran defender with New Westminster, maintains he isn’t the least bit surprised by Penney, a second-round pick in February’s WLA draft from the New Westminster Junior A team.
Hodgson also plays for the Stealth. Penney got his first-ever start in the NLL 12 contests into the 18-game slate last season, when Richards was sidelined with concussion symptoms for an April 3 road contest against the Edmonton Rush, the eventual league champions.
Hodgson was concerned that Penney might be nervous, so he pulled him aside before the team was heading out for the warm-up and asked if there were certain drills that Penney wanted the team to do to help him get ready. Penney smiled and told Hodgson not to worry about doing anything special for him, saying, “I’m just here to stop the ball.”
“My jaw just dropped,” Hodgson said of Penney, who made 39 saves that night and also made 59 saves versus the New England Black Wolves before Richards returned.
“He’s got a great demeanour. He’s a (21-year-old) with the mind of a 35-year-old.”
Penney and the rest of the Salmonbellies have their work cut out for them against the Shamrocks. Victoria’s loaded. They added Dan Dawson, one of the game’s best-ever players, as well as young sniper Jesse King and Rush goalie Aaron Bold to a group that already included Rhys Duch, Corey Small and Scott Ranger.
Victoria won the regular-season banner in the seven-team Senior A circuit, their 14-4 record four points better than the 12-6 mark put forth by the second-place Salmonbellies.
League play in summer lacrosse is difficult to gauge, though, considering veterans regularly skip games to rest up after the NLL season. Dawson, for instance, played just seven times, while Bold saw action in a mere five matchups.
Victoria general manager Chris Welch did say that he should have a full squad available for the final outside of injuries. Welch did admit that his team is “battling an injury or two,” but wouldn’t name names.
“They’ve got a tough team, they’ve got a skilled team, they’ve got good goaltending,” Hodgson said of the Shamrocks.
“To us, the pressure is on Victoria. We are not going to out-skill Victoria. But if we can execute and play our game of lacrosse, we’ve got a chance.”
Penney, who led the WLA in wins (eight) and save percentage (.829) and was third in goals against (8.17) in the regular season, should have a good feel for the talents of Small and Duch, since they’re both members of the Stealth.
He should have insight, too, into Dawson, since Penney’s uncle Sean Holmes played with Dawson on the Ontario-based Brampton Excelsiors, including suiting up together on the 2009 team that beat the Salmonbellies in a thrilling seven-game Mann Cup national championship.
“I know he has a lot of tricks up his sleeve,” Penney said of Dawson.
“But I need to come into the game with a level head. I need to give all the players respect.”