A recent “Try Lacrosse” day at Cloverdale Arena highlighted the Surrey Lacrosse Association's multi-prong efforts to grow the game.
The event held at “The Barn” welcomed kids of all ages to try passing, shooting, and ball handling with a lacrosse stick, or “crosse.”
The Try Lacrosse event is one of several things the Surrey Lacrosse Association (SLA) has on the go in their efforts to share the "amazing" aspects of the sport with the next generation of kids.
Judd Ogden, who runs Morgan and Rock Landscape Services, is assisting in SLA's outreach to introduce more kids in Surrey to the sport.
Ogden, whose kid is playing his last year of lacrosse for SLA, said they are also working on a sports development and exposure program that will, hopefully, be taken around to elementary schools in town. Ogden has experience with growing the sport of football and now he's taking those talents to the lacrosse arena.
“Lacrosse is going through the same thing as football,” he explained. “Our numbers have been scaling back quite a bit. So, all we’re trying to do is get more community involvement.”
Ogden said they have several plans on the horizon. They’re going to march in the Cloverdale Rodeo Parade. They’ll do a promotional event with the Surrey Board of Trade. They are doing more Try Lacrosse free, drop-in events. And last, but not least, they are looking to set up a program that will hopefully be approved by Surrey Schools. If approved, it would allow them to promote lacrosse to school children.
“We did it with football,” he noted. “We’d be registered with (Surrey Schools) and it would allow us to go into the schools and promote it.”
That process involves developing a program, filling out some documentation, and then getting initial clearance from the district. Then they'd have to go through an assessment period where SLA would share their presentation at a school. They'd be professionally graded on it. If they pass, then they'd be good to go.
“We’d basically be teaching the kids how to play the sport,” Ogden explained. “Because when you don’t know the sport, you don’t know the sport.”
He said participation numbers have been dropping over the past few years, but recently SLA has seen an uptick in registrations.
“The numbers are getting better at the younger ages,” he added. “At the older ages, we are becoming more competitive.”
SLA administers both box lacrosse and field lacrosse. The box players are called the Rebels while the field players go by the moniker Warriors.
They play all over the city, but The Barn is ground zero for Rebels’ box lacrosse. They also play at the North Surrey Sport and Ice Complex and when the Cloverdale Sport and Ice Complex is completed that will be another home for lacrosse in Surrey. There are also some open-air box lacrosse floors around town, such as the one at Cloverdale Athletic Park.
There are also new turf fields going in at CAP, with one of the two slated to have dedicated field lacrosse lines put in.
Ogden said any kid or family thinking about lacrosse should give it a go. He noted lacrosse is a great sport for young kids because it teaches them teamwork and fair play and does wonders for hand-eye coordination and fitness.
“They won’t be disappointed,” he added. “It’s an absolutely great sport for kids. It’s non-contact up until ages similar to hockey.”
He said box lacrosse—a starting point for many—is relatable to other sports, such as hockey, field hockey, and field lacrosse.
“For some of these older kids, field lacrosse is a heavily recruited sport,” Ogden noted. “So, it’s also a good avenue to pursue a possible scholarship. In that sense, lacrosse is a very good way to go.”
For more info about lacrosse or the Surrey Lacrosse Association, including when to find the next Try Lacrosse event, visit surreylacrosse.com.
