Prince Rupert’s experiment with creating a lacrosse program at the Jim Ciccone civic Centre came to an end last week and was a big success, according to its organizers.
It was such a big success they’re hoping to expand it significantly next year.
For the past few months around 30 kids from as young as six years old up to preteens have been playing lacrosse together on the ice-less rink at the Civic Centre, using hockey nets instead of actual lacrosse nets and occasionally bringing in goalies from the Prince Rupert Rampage to stand in and defend the nets during the games.
Almost none of the kids knew anything about the sport when they started, but according to their coach Patricia Roubicek, after only a short time many of the kids are showing real promise as players.
“To think they’ve only been practicing here once a week for six week, it’s unbelievable...They’re still at a learning stage, but we’re letting them get a taste of the game. Some of them are very, very talented even though they’ve never played before,” says Roubicek.
Roubicek herself is a very experienced lacrosse player and has played in the World Cup, the Canadian Championships and she says she almost went to the Olympics but women’s lacrosse was not included in the games when she had her shot.
She hopes to expand the lacrosse program into a handful of different teams that could become a citywide lacrosse league. The ultimate goal is to have a team that could be taken down to the BC Games next summer made up of players from the North Coast and Haida Gwaii.
While the program is done for now, Roubicek says she’ll be starting it up again this fall in the gym at the civic centre instead of the rink, and hopefully with some proper equipment.