Mike's Blog: Lake PLacid Lacrosse

Last week was a vacation week for me...and not that you need to know every thing in my life....it was a good sports week and I have to share.

I started to pack for my trip...and when I turned my back, I realized that the Duke of Exeter wanted to join me. Alas, I had to say no. A word he has heard a lot in the last few weeks.

Last week was our trip to Lake Placid for our annual Field Lacrosse Tourney. Once again it was an amazing time with some great people. Our Grand Masters Team is preparing for the World Championships to be held next year in the summer of 2014 in beautiful Denver, Colorado.

Our team was a little bit shorthanded this year. Our star Long Pole Stu Aird had rotator cuff surgery, but he made the trip anyway...as our head coach and did a great job running the bench.

In our first game we were playing a very tough team, Mr BOH... however we went out quickly went out to a 2 to 0 lead, only to see that quickly disappear, and we were behind after the first quarter

6 to 2.

We had "jet lag" I guess, and by the time we settled in, we could not make up the difference...losing 12 to 8.

The next morning, at 9am (early) - we came out slow again and were behind 5 - 2 to Griffin's Lacrosse...but on this day, we fought back and took the game 7 - 5 to even our record.

Saturday, 9am again we would again play early - 9am against Team Tarzan, a beautiful day in Placid. This was a classic field lacrosse game, back and forth battle. Tarzan scored late to tie the game at 9, forcing overtime. Halfway through the 3rd overtime, Team Leader Warren Dimarco caught a pass, the Tarzan defence split like the Red Sea and Warren D. drilled it in the top corner. We win!!!

The great think about Lake Placid is there is always something going on. After our tiring Saturday morning game, we found out that Team Canada was playing Team USA in World Junior Hockey....and for $15 we sat at centre ice to see the likes of youngster Conner McDavid, Max Domi etc play hockey.

Canada/USA Junior Hockey - Great Seats

This is all part of their training camp...and I think the Canadian Coaches had a lot to talk about after this game. 5 on 5 Canadians were dominant...but, when you play 2 men short....twice. Not good.

The American squad killed us on Special teams....scoring 3 power play goals, 1 short handed and 1 four on four. Final score USA 5 Canada 1.

A lot of fun nonetheless.

Moving onto Saturday evening at 6pm, we would play The Remnants...a team ranked 3rd overall going into the tournament. It would be an epic battle. Our goaltender Ted Sawicki was nothing short of spectacular in this game, leading us to a 6 - 4 victory. It was a great game, one of the guys on the other team said that was the best goaltending he had seen at this level.

All in all a great result for us, going 3 wins against only 1 loss.

Here are the results.

Special Mention

Goaltender - Ted Sawicki - Awesome tourney

Long Pole - our long poles were tough all weekend.....special mention to Kevin Sterritt - played great

Midfield - the midfielders were short all weekend - did a lot of running (in our mind it was running).....and fought hard as a group - a lot of running

Attack - Pete Follows, Gary Walker were great......but once again the scoring leader was Scott (Grant Jr) - alias Strongheart, alias The "Minesweeper" - he used his own brand of Table Hockey Lacrosse to lead the way with 8 goals.

Special thanks to Stu Aird for coaching us, and most of all to Warren Dimarco..."organizer Supreme" - for getting us down there.

I would personally like to thank Lisa and Ashley of the Millcroft Physiotherapy and Sports Injuries Clinic in Burlington, for rebuilding me before I left, a very sore Achilles and a bad hip, thanks to them I made it to Placid, and played the four games, although you could clock my speed with a Sundial. I appreciate all that they did.

Here are a few pics.