Let’s Get
By Ryan Boyle F
or a brief time in my adult life, I lived in Austin, Texas. Part of my attraction to the city revolved around a trip to the Austin City Limits music festival. I quickly learned to love and embrace the city’s quirky motto: “Keep Austin Weird.” Being a member of Team USA on three occasions, I would assert that Austin has a friend that shares its spirit — the FIL World Lacrosse Championship. First, let’s talk about the actual premise. Popular opinion argues, and in this case I agree, that the world championship represents the apex of the sport. One team — one nation, rather — reigns supreme over all the others. It’s larger than the MIAA, the NCAA and the MLL. Despite this rational assumption, teams are divided into brackets based on their level of competitiveness. Only the Blue Division — consisting of the six top nations — heads into the tournament competing for the title. The rest vie for their respective divisional titles and a chance to bump-up into the Blue for the elimination round. Only two countries are true contenders and have been champions historically. With all due respect to Australia and Iroquois Nation — who should be significantly better with the Thompsons, Cody Jamieson, and company — the world championship has always come down to the United States and Canada.
Since 1967, the United States has won nine times, including the ‘67 title won by the Mt. Washington Lacrosse Club from Baltimore. Meanwhile, Canada has won twice, most recently in 2006 on its
54 LACROSSE MAGAZINE July 2014>>
Weird
USA-Canada rivalry headlines, but there’s more to the world championship than meets the eye
home soil (and has not been represented by a local tavern team to the best of my knowledge).
During my three Team USA tours, I have seen the rivalry evolve due to external circumstance and the evolution of field lacrosse in Canada. In 2002, MLL players could not participate in the international games, which led to an unusual roster of elder statesmen, successful post-collegiate club players, freshly graduated collegiate players and underclassmen puppies still with NCAA eligibility (like me). In an effort to intimidate this motley crew during the “meaningless” round-robin contest, Canada focused more on punishing the U.S. than winning the game. This strategy did not prove effective. The underdog U.S. team won that match as well as the gold. In 2006, with MLL players on the roster, pundits billed the U.S. as the greatest team of all-time. One problem — the best faceoff midfielder in the history of the sport, Paul Cantabene, was on the sideline watching as a coach instead of competing. That oversight proved too costly given the importance of possession time, and
Continued on page 56 A Publication of US Lacrosse
The World
championships represent the apex of the sport. I am forever grateful for my three tours with Team USA.
©JOHN STROHSACKER
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