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Numbers Don’t Lie Canadians making an impact in NCAA lacrosse isn’t a new


phenomenon. Ontario native and Cornell legend Mike French helped lead the Big Red to the 1976 national championship. Oshawa’s Stan Cockerton was a three-time first-team All- American for N.C. State in the late 1970s and remains third on the NCAA all-time scoring list. British Columbia’s Tom Marechek and Gait twins Gary and Paul dominated at Syracuse during the late 1980s and early ‘90s. But over the last decade, college coaches have more actively


pursued north-of-the-border box players. In 2001, there was just one Canadian (Loyola’s Gavin Prout) among the top 40 scorers in Division I. In 2010, there were 15. It’s not just a smattering of slick inside finishers. Brodie Merrill


of Orangeville, Ontario, reinvented the long-stick midfield position at Georgetown. Kevin Crowley, an end-to-end midfielder from British Columbia, was a 2010 Tewaaraton Award candidate at Stony Brook. Last season, Denver midfielders and Ontario natives Cameron Flint and Jeremy Noble wreaked havoc between the stripes. But even as college coaches outsource skill positions to Canadians, youth lacrosse in the United States has rarely tried to adopt or mimic the same setting or techniques that make former box players so proficient around the net. This seems peculiar. Why should Palmer and


his northern brethren be more adept at catching and depositing the ball in tight spaces? Numerical evidence suggests that early indoor exposure makes better lacrosse players. According to Canadian businessman and lacrosse enthusiast Jason Donville, there were 119 Canadian


42 LACROSSE MAGAZINE March 2012 >>


Division I lacrosse players in 2011 when the Canadian Lacrosse Association (Canada’s US Lacrosse equivalent) reported around 8,000 people in the entire country playing field lacrosse. According to the US Lacrosse Participation Survey nearly 380,000 males played field lacrosse in the U.S. Despite the disparity, the Canadian national team won the FIL World Championship in 2006 and lost by just two goals to Team USA in the 2010 final. Said Virginia head coach Dom Starsia: “When you watch Canadian kids score, when you see their skill level around the cage, you wonder to yourself, ‘Jeez, are we teaching kids [in the U.S.] the wrong things?’” Said Denver head coach Bill Tierney: “If I was US Lacrosse, I


wouldn’t let any kids play field until they were 10 or 12. Until box lacrosse grows in the United States, it’ll continue to be this way.”


MADE IN CANADA Busy Rinks and


Slicker Sticks How do you draw fans to


CARTER BENDER, HARTFORD Hometown: Caledon, Ontario All-American senior midfielder/ attackman is a bruising 6-foot-3 swing player with hands to match.


ROBERT CHURCH, DREXEL Hometown: Coquitlam, British Columbia


Junior attackman can feed (22 assists) or finish (27 goals), with a penchant for game-winners.


stripped hockey rinks in the summertime? For hockey promoters in Canada in the early 1930s whose gate receipts melted with the ice every spring, the question drove them to invent a sport that would suit the rinks’ playing


surfaces during


warmer months. Box lacrosse is considerably


MARK COCKERTON, VIRGINIA


Hometown: Oshawa, Ontario Sophomore midfielder had a coming out party championship weekend, including a three-goal, one-assist outburst in the NCAA semifinals.


TRAVIS COMEAU, GEORGETOWN


Hometown: Red Deer, Alberta Only 5-foot-8 and 155 pounds, the All-Big East junior attackman shot 47 percent last season.


different than the field game. It has boards for boundaries, it’s six-on-six instead of 10-on-10, crosschecking is legal, there are no long sticks and the goals are significantly smaller. There’s also a 30-second shot clock and, at higher levels, fighting is just a five-minute major penalty. Johnny Mouradian, an


Ontario native who played lacrosse and hockey at Ithaca in the 1970s, was one of the first box players to migrate into


A Publication of US Lacrosse


©MOJO STUDIOS (CC); ©STEVE MCLAUGHLIN (CB); ©GREG CARROCCIO (RC); ©LEE WEISSMAN (MC); ©GEORGETOWN (TC)


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