Relocated Stealth set to kick off new season
Langley- based squad to have many Canadians in lineup as team takes on Colorado Mammoth
A new sporting era in the Lower Mainland gets underway tonight.
The Vancouver Stealth, who relocated from Everett, Wash., to Langley during the summer, open their National Lacrosse League season in Colorado against the Mammoth.
The Stealth’s season opener will be broadcast on TSN2 at 6 p. m.
The following Saturday, Jan. 11, fans from Langley, across B. C., and Washington State will have their first opportunity to see the professional squad play live when the Stealth hosts the Minnesota Swarm at the Langley Events Centre.
Head coach Chris Hall said he’s excited to get started, and what initially seemed like a long off- season has quickly crept up on him.
“It always seems like training camp is interminable,” he said in an interview. “It seems so long ago, now. Now it’s almost like we’re running out of time.”
He added, “you’re always anxious for the season to get started once you’ve endured training camp. You play sports to play the games.”
British Columbia, an amateur lacrosse hotbed, hasn’t had a pro squad since the Vancouver Ravens, who played three seasons at GM Place, flew the coop in 2004.
The long wait for professional lacrosse to return to B. C. is over.
Now it’s up to the fans to come out to games, something Hall hopes won’t be a problem.
“It’s been a long wait for fans and players in the Lower Mainland to have a team come back,” he said.
“We’re really excited to unveil the new franchise and get going.”
Hall noted that, even for fans who live as far away as North Vancouver, the Langley Events Centre is a relatively short hop for them, travel- wise.
“With the new highway ( design), it’s pretty easy to get around the Lower Mainland,” he said. “There’s no reason why we won’t draw fans from Richmond, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge ... everywhere.”
The local squad will once again look to challenge for the Champion’s Cup this year. On May 11, 2013, at the LEC, the former Washington Stealth lost 11- 10 to the defending titleholder Rochester Knighthawks in the NLL championship game.
Referring to the Champion’s Cup, Hall said the mission is the same for everyone in the league, but he’s not a huge advocate of goal- setting.
“I’m more of a ‘ preparer’,” he said. “If we’re well prepared in every facet, and motivated, then performance is a natural result.”
The Stealth hopes to once again vie for the NLL title this spring, and the team has a number of veterans and an infusion of youthful talent to hopefully get it there.
Emerging from the 40- player training camp was the Stealth’s top draft choice, 6- foot 185 - pound forward Cody Bremner from Victoria.
Bremner was the club’s first round pick ( eighth overall) in the 2013 NLL Entry Draft and is coming off an impressive Western Lacrosse Association season in which he lead the Nanaimo Timbermen in points with 54, on 28 goals and 26 assists.
Bremner is joined by fellow draft pick Tyler Digby ( 20th overall), a 6- 3 230- pound forward from New Westminster, who really caught the coaching staff’s attention at camp,
“Digby was impressive, he’s a big body with great soft hands and he really confirmed our expectations,” Hall said.
Also adding to the list of newcomers were free agent forwards Sean Lundstrom ( a Langley native who played for the Langley Jr. Thunder of the B. C. Junior A Lacrosse League) and Alex Gajic ( from Burnaby).
The four new forwards will add to an already potent offence which returns a number of big offensive weapons starting with the team’s top scorer from last season, Rhys Duch.
Now with a fifth NLL season under his belt, Duch has 440 regular season points ( 188 goals, 252 assists) and sits second on the Stealth’s all- time points list.
Duch will be joined up front by two returning players: Cliff Smith who is coming off a career season with 15 goals and 30 assists in the regular season and Lewis Ratcliff, who is sixth on the NLL’s all- time goals list with 411.
In just four seasons with the team, Ratcliff sits fourth on the Stealth’s all- time goals list and earned himself a Champion’s Cup MVP in 2010, as he led the Stealth to its first NLL title.
Ratcliff knows the LEC well, having played there in 2012 as a member of the Mann Cup finalist Langley Thunder of the WLA.
“Obviously I’m excited to be able to play in front of familiar fans,” he said. “It should be a cool atmosphere.”
Langley is already home to a pair of high level lacrosse teams in the form of the BCJALL’s Jr. Thunder and WLA’s Thunder.
Hall is very familiar with the WLA, having played nine seasons as a member of the Victoria Shamrocks, before taking on head coaching duties in B. C.’ s capital.
Hall led the ’ Rocks to a Mann Cup victory in 1983, his rookie year as the team’s head coach.
With all due respect to senior A lacrosse, Hall said there is a huge difference between the two leagues.
“It’s two totally different entertainment packages,” Hall said. “In the NLL, rules are more conducive to a more fast- paced, spectator- friendly game.”
He added that the NLL is more than a game — it’s an entire entertainment package.
“It’s more of an NBA- style production than anything else,” he said.