Port Coquitlam Minor Lacrosse is attempting to take lemons and make lemonade after learning that the Minnekhada middle school lacrosse box has to be removed to make way for a replacement school.
PCML president Josh Wahl said the organization will use the opportunity to push for a covered lacrosse box somewhere in PoCo even as it plans for challenges in scheduling games for the next box lacrosse season, beginning next April.
“If we’re talking about relocating a box, I would like to see what the cost would be and the location would be for a covered box,” said Wahl, who remembers playing at the Minnekhada box, one of three in the city, when he played in the 1980s.
Still, he’s also disappointed the box will be lost.
“We use it quite a bit,” Wahl said Wednesday, the day workers were dismantling the box for storage.
School District 43 has admitted it should be responsible for relocating for the box but had not budgeted this expense, estimated at between $150,000 to $200,000, as part of the $33-million construction project.
Concerned about losing a valuable asset, the city’s budget and infrastructure committee decided Tuesday to ask staff for an analysis of alternate locations and make recommendations so the cost could be considered as part of the city’s 2018/’19 capital plan deliberations.
Now that the project is back in the city’s court, Wahl hopes he can convince council that the box should be covered as the sport is affected by rain delays and darkness, and other cities, such as Port Moody, have a covered box that PoCo’s teams use for February tryouts.
“We’re hoping we can gain some traction and get it on the radar anyways,” Wahl said.
