Huntsville Minor and Jr Hawks Lacrosse starting strong despite obstacles

Despite the obstacles of Mother Nature, the Huntsville Minor Lacrosse Field Teams have hit record numbers. We always push to get on to the field as soon as possible after March Break and it was looking good for a few weeks. However, after our initial week on Conroy Park Field, the next two weeks have had limited practice availability due to our inclement weather.

The Lacrosse Club has five full teams this year topping up at 79 players. U9, U11, U13, U15 and U17 teams are all full with the instance of shutting down registration for our two oldest groups.

The league we play in is the Ontario Minor Field Lacrosse League (Spring Season) and we play all games on the weekends for six weeks in the GTA. The first weekend starts April 16 and the Provincial Weekend is the May long weekend in Brampton. The frustration of the weather slowing us down is a part of our “geographical handicap” as we are the most northern centre entered into the league. Huntsville entered into the league in 2010 and has gained respect within the OMFLL for the quality teams produced.

The Minor Hawks started the rep team box tryouts April 11, which is three weeks post regular time. Most other centres in the province are ahead of us now as they have been practicing as a team for at least a week with their two weeks of tryouts. Due to the Docs on Ice Hockey tournament, the lacrosse club was set back by three weeks achieving the one floor surface they usually obtain the week after the March Break. It has been a bit of a challenge arranging our rep teams tryout and player evaluations. This needs to be done before our House League needs to start on April 20 to be done in June before school lets out for the summer. We still won’t have one rep team on the floor until next week due to scheduling arrangements. The town has been helpful with the scheduling process as we crunch one month into 2 weeks. The first minor box games are set to start Monday April 25 in the Jack Bionda Arena.

However, even though this is the case, we have had incredible numbers coming out with our younger teams this year. On April 11 we had 19 tykes, 22 novices, 14 peewees, and 15 bantams out ready to play. Midgets will start next week and already we have 17 registrations for that group as well. Things are looking good for the box teams this year!

Registration is available on the first night of House league, April 20, for all the players that would like to learn the sport.