Lucky No. 6: Draft lottery kind to Shamrocks

It isn’t often in sports the defending champion gets to enter the draft lottery. But a pandemic will do that to you. Coming off two dark seasons, the Western Lacrosse Association decided to put all seven teams into the 2022 draft lottery late Thursday. The draft will be conducted Feb. 10 at the Langley Events Centre.

The defending 2019 WLA champion Victoria Shamrocks will select sixth overall. The New Westminster Salmonbellies won the lottery and will pick first. The Nanaimo Timbermen will select second, Burnaby Lakers third, Maple Ridge Burrards fourth, Langley Thunder fifth, Shamrocks sixth and Coquitlam Adanacs seventh.

“Every year we are excited to add some good young talent. The beauty of this year is we will be adding three years of new talent,” WLA commissioner Paul Dal Monte said in a statement.

As defending champions, the Shamrocks would have selected seventh and last, but moved up one spot in the luck of the lottery. Selecting seventh in 2021, the Shamrocks took Nick Scott from the Langley Junior Thunder in the first round and in 2020 traded picks to acquire hometown Victoria product and rising NLL pro Brad McCulley from the WLA Langley Thunder.

The 2022 WLA draft won’t be a classic but will have its moments.

“It’s not the deepest of draft classes this year but the high end is very good,” said Shamrocks GM Chris Welch.

“There’s a steep drop-off after that. But at numbers six and 13 [in the first two rounds], we will get a couple of players who will compete for spots.”

Meanwhile, the WLA also announced the 2022 season will begin May 27 with New Westminster travelling to take on the Shamrocks at The Q Centre. The full schedule will be released Feb. 3. The season can’t come soon enough for lacrosse-starved B.C. fans and teams.

“We are a lacrosse club. We exist only to play lacrosse,” said Welch.

That hasn’t happened in two years.

“Our players and coaches are excited and can’t wait to get back on the floor in 2022,” said WLA commissioner Dal Monte.