Lacrosse is having a moment.
The sport will be re-added to the Olympics at Los Angeles in 2028, while the world box championships next year in Utica, New York, are fully subscribed with 28 men’s and 10 women’s national teams.
An old guard is riding this new wave with veteran mentor Dave Bremner named the new head coach of the Victoria Junior Shamrocks. Bremner will also coach Slovakia at the 2024 world box lacrosse championships.
“With it becoming an Olympic sport with field sixes, and the added number of teams for world box lacrosse, it’s great to see our sport growing internationally,” said Bremner.
Locally, joining Bremner on the Junior Shamrocks bench next season will be his assistant coaches and old teammates Darren Reisig and Grant Hamilton. The trio won the Mann Cup national Senior ‘A’ championship together with the 1997 and 1999 Victoria Shamrocks.
“I believe the kids will relate to the experience the three of us have,” said Bremner.
Reisig, Hamilton and Bremner were also junior teammates and won the 1988 Minto Cup national Junior A championship with Esquimalt Legion, the last time an Island team hoisted the Cup.
Ending that drought 36 years later, with his former teammates Reisig and Hamilton beside him on the Junior Shamrocks bench, would have the story come full circle.
“That would be poetic,” said Bremner.
“I thrive on building things.”
He certainly does. Bremner took a winless 0-21 Nanaimo Junior Timbermen squad from the season before to a sa国际传媒 championship contender in his four years as head coach of the Junior T-Men in his most recent bench stint in junior lacrosse.
Departing Junior Shamrocks head coach Terry Dennett took the team to two Minto Cup national tournaments in 2019 and 2022, although the ultimate goal of a Canadian championship eluded his group.
There will be a bit of a rebuild from the Dennett era but Victoria is a lacrosse hotbed with talented young players always coming through the pipeline to play for the Junior Shamrocks while also earning NCAA scholarships to play field lacrosse in the U.S.
“With Coquitlam hosting the Minto Cup in 2024, there will be two sa国际传媒 berths. I see no reason why we can’t challenge for them,” said Bremner.
“My expectations are a Minto Cup championship.”
That would indeed be a poetic tale 36 years in the making, as Bremner mentioned, for himself, Reisig and Hamilton.
