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Photo Credit: Grande Prairie Lacrosse Association Facebook page.
By Shane Clausing
Grande Prairie Lacrosse

Grande Prairie Lacrosse Association gearing up for 2021 season

Mar 18, 2021 | 6:04 PM

After being away from the sport for an entire year, the Grande Prairie Lacrosse Association is gearing up for their season.

The 2020 lacrosse season was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which left many athletes and players in the community disappointed.

While this season won’t look like previous years, Ron Regnier, the President of the Grande Prairie Lacrosse Association says he’s happy the kids have an opportunity to play.

“We’ll still have inter-league scrimmages here, we’ll teach the new kids the basics of lacrosse and we’ll try to keep it fun, entertaining, and challenging for our returning players. I’m just excited to get sticks back in kids’ hands and get them back onto the floor.”

In a normal season, the lacrosse teams in Grande Prairie would travel to Edmonton four times a year to play games. Because of COVID-19, that’ll be unable to happen.

Although Regnier is disappointed his players and teams can’t travel, he’s hopeful by having players stay in Grande Prairie this year, they’ll be able to expose new players to the game.

“Right now, it looks like we’re going to have a house league. It’s sad we’re going to lose the travel and games, but because of that and due to a very generous donation from Ole Smokes Coffee, I was able to drop the registration fees considerably this year.”

“My hope is to attract more players out because there won’t be the travel and as high of a cost to register. So, (hopefully) kids would get used to the game and they’ll fall in love with it like we all do when we try it.”

For a normal year, there are usually 100-130 players registered to play lacrosse in Grande Prairie.

This year, Regnier is expecting those numbers to drop a little because most of their players, they’ll still be playing hockey into April and May.

Currently, there are 60 players registered for this season. Regnier is hopeful they’ll be able at least have between 80-90 players registered for the season.

by Shane Clausing