Thompson’s Taylor Ritchie is taking his lacrosse talents south, and not just as a member of R.D. Parker Collegiate’s high school field lacrosse team.
Ritchie was one of the players chosen at tryouts in April to play for the Manitoba Blizzard, a Tier I junior B team based in Winnipeg that competes in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League, which also includes a team in Saskatchewan and eight more in Alberta.
“I’ve grown up watching them when I’ve been in Winnipeg before and always wanted to be on the team and then decided I’d give it a shot this year and it worked out,” said Ritchie during a high school field lacrosse team practice May 14. “It was two sets of tryouts over spring break - the first weekend and then I came back a second weekend. They asked me to come back and they told me after practice so I knew before I came back [to Thompson]. I thought I had a shot going in because I knew a lot of the guys that played last year. I felt confident with it. I wasn’t totally sure. There’s only a few spots but it worked out obviously.”
Ritchie was familiar with many of the players from previous experience with provincial teams in minor lacrosse but the intensity was ramped up at tryouts.
“The tryouts are really fast, really high-pace,” he said. “All the passes were quicker, the cuts were quicker, the plays were made quicker. Everyone’s just bigger, stronger. It’s the same game, just everyone’s gotten better at what they were doing before.”
Ritchie missed the team’s first games on the weekend of May 9-10 because of prom and other prior commitments, but he’s been practising with the Blizzard.
“Right now, I’m basically in Winnipeg every week [to practise],” he says. “I fly down Thursday night and then I’m back Friday morning. I fly back to go to school.”
Ritchie could make his Blizzard debut this weekend, when RDPC’s field lacrosse team is also playing in Winnipeg.
“I’m very excited,” says Ritchie. “I’m really looking forward to that.”
