Impassioned team ready to cradle past the bumps ahead
Aileen Ormoc
Sports Editor
After a nine-year hiatus, the women’s lacrosse club will begin regular practices this September in preparation for Ontario University Athletics (OUA) championship finals.
For coaches Sally Elabasery and Braeden Szucs, this is an exciting time in the club’s history.
“I am looking forward to seeing our work out there on the field and the girls enjoying themselves,” says Elabasery. “We have quite a bit of talent on our team so I think we are going to surprise the other teams.”
For one of the founding university teams to start lacrosse in Ontario, there is an overwhelming lack of support from York.
“If we had a larger budget, we could afford some [more equipment] and transportation,” says Elabasery. “Right now, we have a tournament this Sunday and I am not sure all the girls can make it transportation-wise.”
Competing in this year’s regular OUA season also has proved to be an uphill battle since losing varsity status in 2003.
Financially, the club has had to support itself through other means like fundraising. The coaches themselves are volunteers and have had to work with a small budget.
Booking fields central to campus for practice has also been an issue for the club. Currently practicing on the field at Passy, they hope to gain access to more field space, once the new stadium is built.
But Elabasery explains her love of the game has always come before the money, particularly in terms of getting this club back up and running.
“My passion is to expose women’s lacrosse to more and more people and make the game more accessible,” she says.
This year, the Federation of International Lacrosse has made it easier for clubs to join OUA finals.
“You do not have to compete in regular season games; you just need to compete in the tournament,” says Elabasery.
Despite being one of Canada’s national sports, lacrosse is largely underrated at the university level.
Szucs says the decreasing level of media exposure given to Canada’s national lacrosse team is unfortunate when compared to that of the United States’ lacrosse teams.
Just like the national team, the lacrosse teams at the university level in the US receive a lot of media attention.
He explains that in the US there are three divisions, but in Canada there are only two: East and West.
However, there are a growing number of lacrosse teams among Canadian universities joining the list of competitors during this year’s regular OUA season.
In addition to York, the universities of Brock, Guelph, Wilfred Laurier, McGill, Queens, Toronto, and Western are among those competing in women’s lacrosse tournaments this year.
And for the first time ever, the Lacrosse World Cup will be hosted in Oshawa, Ontario from July 1 to 20, 2013.
Although the women’s lacrosse club is moving in a positive direction, there are numerous issues which they will face in the forthcoming season.
“I would like to see women’s lacrosse built towards varsity status and then eliminating those [financial] barriers for girls who want to play,” says Elabasery.
On September 9, the women’s lacrosse club will be competing in an early-bird tournament at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus, and all female students are welcome to join.
