A pair of Tri-City lacrosse players will don the red and white for a series of exhibition games in Denver later this month.
Ben McIntosh of Coquitlam and Ryland Rees of Port Coquitlam will join 24 others from across the country on Team Canada for matches against the University of Denver and the United States Air Force Academy on Oct. 22 and 23. The exhibition matches will help the organization decide who makes the team going to the 2018 World Lacrosse Championships, which will be held in Manchester, England.
It has been a busy year for McIntosh.
He won a National Lacrosse League Champions Cup with the Saskatchewan Rush in June before losing a best-of-seven Mann Cup series with the Western Lacrosse Association Maple Ridge Burrards later in the summer.
The 25-year-old runner, scored 20 goals and 23 assists in 11 playoff games in the WLA post-season, said he was thrilled to be joining Team Canada.
“There’s just such a great sense of pride that comes with playing for your country,” said the 2015 NLL rookie of the year and 2016 sportsmanship award winner. “I look forward to getting out to Denver and getting the opportunity to play with such a talented group of guys.”
Meanwhile, Rees of the Port Coquitlam Saints is one of a handful of players that are leading Canada’s youth movement.
He has worn the maple leaf before, when he joined Team Canada during last summer’s FIL U19 Men’s World Championship, a team that lost a heartbreaking finale to Team USA in the gold medal game at Percy Perry Stadium last summer.
Head coach Randy Mearns said picking the roster was not an easy task.
“This training event in Denver will begin the journey towards the world championship in 2018,” he said in a press release. “But it’s just the first step in a complex two year process. We are excited to get started.”
Later he added: “We felt it was important to develop a roster with veteran leadership for guidance and experience, but to also have a primary function of working with and evaluating some of the next generation of Canadian lacrosse talent.”
@TriCityNews
