WESTLOCK — The Westlock Rock kicked off its regular season with its annual ‘Rock Day’ April 29 at the Rotary Spirit Centre (RSC).
The one-day event featured games against teams in the Greater Edmonton Lacrosse Council (GELC) in several age divisions including U11 and U13 and featured the return of the Junior ‘B’ (Tier 2) Rock with players ages 17-21.
“We had a pretty good turnout,” said Westlock Lacrosse Association president Josh Reay, noting some teams had their home opener that day while others held theirs April 29 with the regular season underway since April 24.
In addition to hosting several games, Rock Day also featured a 50-50 raffle draw, a stick giveaway and team photos. “It’s just a day to try to get kids out and promote the game,” said Reay.
This year the association has five teams — the U9, U11, U13 and U15 — while the Junior ‘B’ team plays in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League (RMLL). Reay said including the juniors, there are about 65 players this season.
Kyle Schram is behind the bench for the junior club this season, and also coached the last Junior ‘B’ team in 2019.
“He’s very passionate about the game and very knowledgeable,” said Reay. “It’s great to have him on board and it’s great to have (junior lacrosse) back. It’ll help promote lacrosse for the younger kids.”
Schram noted a couple of tough losses to start the season but they’re looking forward to working with the players and helping them develop.
“We have a lot boys who haven’t played for two or three years now so coming back in we had a lot of rust to deal with,” said Schram noting the team got better as the weekend went on. “Sunday’s game went a lot better. We were in the game the whole way, we battled hard and just fell short at the end.”
Schram said he liked what he saw from his team opening weekend, adding they played from start to finish, noting there was “no lack of effort from the guys.” He says with that mindset the season will only get better.
“I’m just looking for our team to be competitive every night, come out on the floor and work hard,” said Schram. “I do feel like once we get some stuff figured out I think we will be a competitive team and when the season’s over we’ll be a playoff-ready team.”
