Uganda will be the first team from Africa to participate in the world championships.
Green Division China, Italy, Netherlands, Norway
Collegiate sports as they are known in the U.S. do not exist in the Netherlands, so the only Dutch teams are at the senior club level. The program, which placed eighth in 2010, has hopes of big improvement with an eye on 2028, 100 years after the first-ever lacrosse game in the country. … Conversely, almost all teams in Norway are university teams. The sports’ roots trace to the top two business schools in the country. “It means everything,” midfielder Alexander Bakke said of playing in Denver. “It means that we can meet and play better lacrosse players than we are, and improve as players. Learn more about lacrosse, so that the Norwegian players can take this knowledge back to their club teams. This will grow the game in Norway. You can see the results already.” … Players on the preliminary roster of China represent 16 different provinces in the country, so travel is needed to Shanghai and Beijing, cities where the sport is mainly played. That fact is referenced in a promotional video for the team that begins, “People always ask why do you travel over an hour to play this sport?” The answers include things like teamwork and how to respond to adversity. … Team Italy scrimmaged national runner-up Notre Dame just two weeks after the Irish played in the title game.
Yellow Division Bermuda, France, Ireland, Uganda
Like many new lacrosse nations, American expats played a key role in Bermuda, the self-governing British territory of 21 square miles in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There aren’t any lacrosse leagues on the island, and play mostly happens during holidays when college players, like Syracuse short-stick midfielder Drew Jenkins, arrive, but locals do have pick-up games. Ties are settled on the golf course, as Bermuda has the most courses per square mile in the world. … Lacrosse is relatively new in France, despite the fact that French explorers in the New World gave the sport its name in 1638, using the generic term for any game played with a curved stick (crosse) and a ball. The French will play in their second world tournament… Ireland scrimmaged Israel on St. Patrick’s Day weekend and marched in the New York City parade for the holiday the next day. … The Dream 2014 campaign worked for Fields of Growth International and Uganda, which will be the first team from Africa to play — and a country wounded by years of civil unrest perpetuated most recently by the Joseph Kony-led Lord’s Resistance Army. Not only has Fields of Growth, a volunteer corps, established a lacrosse compound in Kampala, but it also has built a school for impoverished children. Andrew Boston, a former Delaware player who spent two years in northeastern Uganda with the Peace Corps, is head coach. Tom Schreiber, the Tewaaraton Award finalist from Princeton, Virginia sophomore defenseman Tanner Scales and recent high school graduate Casey Lavallee round out what figures to be the youngest coaching staff in FIL history. “Kandote...(and I Dream),” a documentary film by former Johns Hopkins player Will McCance, chronicles the inspirational journey of Africa’s first national lacrosse team.
Orange Division Israel, Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Sweden
Scott Neiss founded Israel Lacrosse four years ago after visiting on a Birthright trip, and the country sends a team to the world championships for the first time. Although only one player on its 46-player travel roster was born in Israel, nineteen have moved or will move to the Middle East. … In Slovakia, there are less than 50 playing the sport. The first club in the country was founded in 2003, and in 2008 a Slovakia national team played in their first international event, the European championships in Finland. … There are four teams in Stockholm, the center for the game in Sweden. … The Republic of Korea will play for the fourth time.
64 LACROSSE MAGAZINE July 2014>> A Publication of US Lacrosse
©CREDIT
©UGANDA LACROSSE
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84