It will be a big lacrosse weekend at Planet Ice as Maple Ridge will welcome the Port Coquitlam Saints and Victoria Shamrocks for a B.C. Junior A Lacrosse Association regular season game.
With renovations well underway at the Port Coquitlam recreation centre, the Saints have been playing on the road a fair bit this season. They had trouble finding a date to host Victoria, which typically only plays on the mainland on weekends, and saw a natural fit down Lougheed Highway in Maple Ridge.
“It’s a great opportunity for our league to expand our fan base,” BCJALL president Karl Christiansen said. “Ridge Meadows is one of the strongest minor programs in the province and always has some of the top draft picks coming into our league.”
Players from areas that don’t have junior A clubs are eligible to be drafted by the eight BCJALL teams. The league consists of Burnaby, Coquitlam, Delta, Langley, Nanaimo, New Westminster, Port Coquitlam and Victoria.
The game will coincide with the minor Burrards appreciation barbecue and is followed by the WLA Burrards’ home opener against the Burnaby Lakers at 6:30 p.m.
After already playing exhibition games in Chilliwack and Mission, Saints head coach Kelly Scott said it’s a great opportunity to showcase his team in front of what should be a packed house.
The Saints are on a three-game winning streak and defeated the Delta Islanders on Wednesday, 14-9.
“We have a couple ex-Burrards on our team and they’re excited to be playing front of their home crowd,” Scott said.
“I know Ridge Minor is excited to host, they’ve been wanting a junior A team for a long time and hopefully we can give them a good game.”
The push for junior A lacrosse to extend further east has been a topic of conversation for team executives for a few years now.
A moratorium on league expansion was issued in 2015 and ends in 2018, and Christiansen said there is no doubt the city will be considered if the BCJALL decides to go down that route.
“As the league gets more competitiveI believe the governors will be more open to considering expansion or relocation,” he said.
“The goal was to originally ensure we had parody first and we’re starting to see that.”
• The junior A game gets started at 2 p.m.