The most successful Jr. A lacrosse program in the province is doing its best to feed Alberta’s two professional teams with the next crop of prospects.
Seven former members of the Okotoks Jr. A Raiders earned invites to professional training camps with a trio of alumni, highlighted by Okotokian Mitch Banister, trying out for the Edmonton Rush, National Lacrosse League (NLL) finalists in 2012.
“It just really shows the possibilities of kids coming from these rural areas and non-lacrosse hot-beds and what they can do,” Banister said. “A lot of people from British Columbia and Ontario think the Alberta players don’t have the talent quite yet, but with all of us trying out for these teams it is opening some doors and opening some eyes on what they can possibly get out of Alberta people.”
Banister, Edmonton’s fourth-round pick in the 2012 NLL draft in October, has overcome the initial nervous energy attached to his first camp with a professional outfit.
“With the nerves and everything coming in it’s been pretty exciting,” Banister said. “The more I got on the floor, the more comfortable I felt.”
Fortunately for Banister, the former alternate captain of the Raiders, he has a teammate in Edmonton in Jesse Fehr who happened to be his assistant coach with the Okotoks club.
Fehr, the co-ordinator of the Okotoks Mustangs field lacrosse program for the past two summers, made the Rush roster as a rookie last season.
“He’s always there if I have any questions with anything,” Banister said of Fehr. “Either on the floor or even with the travels.”
Banister, who is joined by Raider alumnus Keegan Davidson and Fehr at the Rush training camp, is setting the bar high in Edmonton and looking to defy the odds to earn a spot on the defending Western champions’ roster.
“My main goal is to make the team, whether it’s on the practice roster or my main goal on the active roster,” Banister said. “I’m feeling pretty confident about my level of skill so far in camp.”
Edmonton’s training camp has spanned the nation as the Rush got things going in late November in Ontario as a lead up to the Dec. 8 exhibition tilt with the Toronto Rock in Oakville.
“I played the full game against the Toronto Rock and that was definitely really exciting,” Banister said. “In the warm-up I was pretty nervous being that was my first taste of the NLL, but after the first couple shifts I felt like I was doing all right.”
The 22-year-old is sticking to his guns at camp and displaying his blue-collar work ethic on the defensive end and in transition, areas in which the tenacious Okotokian excels.
“(The coaching staff) mentioned they like how I play gritty and that’s what I’ve been trying to do, to bring a little bit more grit to the team,” Banister said.
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Banister earned valuable experience with the Maple Ridge Burrards of the Western Lacrosse Association, a British-Columbia based Senior A league populated by many an NLL player, this season. However, there’s a reason the NLL is the world’s elite lacrosse league.
“It’s definitely a lot faster of a pace,” Banister said. “In the WLA there are two or three main guys playing on each team that you have to watch for and in the NLL it’s every guy that you have to watch for.”
The Raiders are also well represented with Southern Alberta’s NLL outfit.
Former Okotoks captain Barclay Hickey and 2012 team members Aaron Tackaberry and Kyle Dexter all earned training camp invites with the Calgary Roughnecks.
Across the country, playmaker extraordinaire Jordan Daradick —a key member of the Raiders after being acquired midway through the 2012 season from Ontario — is taking part in his first professional training camp with the Niagara Lake Monsters of the Canadian Lacrosse League.
Raiders president and general manager David Fehr said the ubiquity of alumni at the professional training camps speaks to his organization’s emphasis on development.
“We usually have two or three new kids a year and that speaks to the fact we really do pay attention to finding ways to help the kids elevate their skill-set, help them prepare for that next level,” Fehr said. “And that’s a philosophy and it’s a mindset.”
For more information on the roster movement at NLL training camps go to the league website at www.nll.com.
