The Okanagan has been granted a new Inter A lacrosse club.
The British Columbia Intermediate Lacrosse League (BCILL) voted 9-1 in favour of adding the Okanagan Wild as the league’s 11th team.
Welcome to the fold, @OkanaganWild! #GrowTheGame https://t.co/0FgnzVTDL2
— BC Junior A Lacrosse (@BCJALL) February 3, 2017
“It was approved about three weeks ago and I’d been working on the application for the franchise for a few months,” Wild General Manager, Martin Gardner, told KelownaNow over the phone on Tuesday. “It’s exciting for us, exciting for the lacrosse community.”
The league is for players between the ages of 16-18 and provides a much-needed bridge between minor lacrosse and junior lacrosse in the Okanagan.
“The BCILL is all about growth of sport, it’s about funneling the highest level of 16 to 18-year-olds into their Junior A programs,” explained Gardner.
Now that the business side of things has been completed and the team has named a head coach, Dan Chetner, the search for talent begins.
The first tryout is on February 19th from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. at Hassen Arena in Armstrong, which is one of the only lacrosse boxes in the region that isn’t iced up for hockey at the moment.
“We’re going to have potentially three evaluations, which will have eight evaluators present, to select the 25 man roster,” said Gardner. “We can card or sign 25 players prior to April 1st.”
Tryouts for the Okanagan Wild Inter A Box Lacrosse Team are confirmed for Sunday, February 19th from 11-3pm at Hassen Arena in Armstrong.
— Okanagan Wild Lax (@OkanaganWild) February 2, 2017
After the team is picked, the season begins in the third week of April and the Wild will be playing a total of 20 games, once at home and once on the road against all 10 teams.
In an effort to make things work for the rest of the teams in the league, which are mainly based out of the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley, the Wild will be playing six of their home games in Chilliwack.
The reason for that, according to Gardner, is simply travel and the fact that Lower Mainland teams have rejected Okanagan based applications for a franchise before due to the amount of travel that would come with 10 games a year in the Okanagan Valley.
“Many teams have showed that there is now some interest in coming to the Interior and the possibility of having a successful first year will create other opportunities next year to play all our home games here,” Gardner said. “There’s even a likelihood of creating another Inter(mediate) A team here, similar to Nanaimo and Victoria.”
For now, though, the focus is on season one and Gardner expects the team to be competitive despite the fact it’s their first year in the league.
“Our goal for this season is to compete,” he said. “We believe that we have a chance to win the title and I’d say our goal is to finish in the top three.”
The quest for that top three and possible championship finish begins on February 19th.
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