CANADA’ S GAME
BY SCOTT TAYLOR Photos by James Carey Lauder
Players from the Red River Lacrosse Association: Back row from left: Hudson DeLaRonde, Sidewinders; Riley Winzoski, Falcons; Kaitlynn Anderson, Gryphons; Aidan Einarsson, Wizards; Cole Kennedy, Shamrocks. Front row kneeling from left: Max Ojala, Wizards and Ethan Fontaine, Ojibway Nationals
For Richard DeLaRonde, the assistant coach of Manitoba’ s National B-Side Champion Pee Wee lacrosse team, Canada’ s game is in his blood.
Not only did he play lacrosse while growing up in Thompson, but he now has five kids who either played the game or still play – 18-year-old daughter Kyra played until novice; 13-year-old twins Alexander and Seth played on Manitoba’ s National B-Side Pee Wee champions two years ago; while 11-yearold son Parker played on this past year’ s national championship squad; and nine-year-old Hudson is also a player.
“ And every one played hockey,” he said proudly.“ All my boys still play hockey while my daughter played high school hockey right up until she graduated last year. For them, playing both lacrosse and hockey makes sense.”
This year, DeLaRonde will be the head coach of Team Manitoba’ s highly-successful Pee Wee lacrosse team, but right now he’ s a hockey dad spending much of his time driving to his kids’ games. However, he clearly sees the importance of playing both hockey and lacrosse.
“ Getting involved in lacrosse is fairly simple,” he said.“ We have a short season for most players from April to June. For those who want to play at the provincial level, it can go on until August, but I’ ve always believed it’ s a great complementary sport to hockey.
“ It definitely helps players with their hand-eye co-ordination and it’ s a physical game so the body positioning is very much the same as it is in hockey. And, of course, we play box lacrosse in the same rinks as hockey so the surroundings are very familiar to any hockey player in the region. My kids play lacrosse in the same rinks that they use for hockey.”
Make no mistake, box lacrosse is Canada’ s game. In
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