Photo Credit: Chris Vale
Chris Vale, Beat Writer Six Nations
Lacrosse is Awesome
The fourth annual Dreamcatcher Charitable Foundation Lacrosse Tournament took place in early November. The tournament weekend didn’t just include playing some great lacrosse but it was also for a great cause.
The Dreamcatcher Foundation is an organization that helps Native Americans with the financial offset of attaining their goals. Josh Powless put together this ten team tournament that had some very talented teams such as the Heat (Six Nations Chiefs players); The Grizzly’s (Rivermen players plus Lyle Thompson); the Ontario Senior B champs Brooklin Merchants; as well as some other great teams. Players were from Six Nations; Newtown; Kahnawake; and all over Southern Ontario.
The team I suited up for was the Shooting Blanks founded by goalies Brian Curnow and Chris Cooke both great guys with whom I had the pleasure of playing masters with this past summer. When they asked me if I would play lacrosse with them again I jumped at the chance. We were mostly guys out of Toronto with a few Six Nations players, not to mention the jerseys we donned on our backs.
We played four games, one on Friday night and three on Saturday. Our schedule started out with a game against the 32’s on Friday which was made up of players from Newtown and the War Chiefs team. These guys had a ton of talented players, while our team, the Shooting Blanks was playing together for the first time. But after a rough first period we cleaned things up a little and only lost 11-5. Not to shabby for a throw together team.
We started off Day Two by playing the Heat. These guys had some major players, including Craig Point; Stephen Keogh; Randy Staats; Alexander Kedoh Hill; Jeremy Thompson; and MVP Dhane Smith. It was amazing being on the floor with all that talent and something I will not forget although the score is something I’d like to put behind us.
In our last two games we faced the Oneida Braves; and the Six Nations Sting. The Braves team had Orangeville Junior player Andy Campbell who lit the scoreboard up. We played a solid game but again couldn’t pull out the victory.
When we played the Sting who are the former Can-Am champs we were looking to put one win on the board. The game was tight most of the way and we were only down 5-4 but finally ran out of gas and took an 8-4 loss.
Although we did not win a single contest, this had to be one of the best tournaments I have played in. Ten talented box lacrosse teams with a lot of great guys on every team and the best part, we got to hang out with the good ole Rez Dogs between the games. Lacrosse is more than just a sport, it’s a place where friends and teammates get together, reminisce about old times and dream of new memories they can make.
The Grizzly’s would take the championship game defeating the Heat by a close score of 8-7. Lyle Thompson would score the game ending goal for the Grizzly’s and ended a great weekend of lacrosse.
Until next year…
Chris Vale, Beat Writer Six Nations
Lacrosse is Awesome