With training camp weekend finally here, I was very excited to get to Connecticut, meet the New England Black Wolves team and play some lacrosse. Jake and Mike Lazore had been invited to free agent camp tryouts, so it worked out I caught a ride with them as they stopped in Albany to pick me up on their way through. Jake is one of my good buddies from my hometown Akwesasne, who I grew up playing with and Mike is my teammate with the Rochester Rattlers. They both made it past the free agent camp and were invited to the team training camp for Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday morning we woke up early to head to Yuhas Performance Training to get our physicals. Once that was done we had down time to explore the Mohegan Sun resort and wow, what a sweet place. It’s going to be a very cool, and great opportunity to have a pro lacrosse team in Connecticut and to have the Mohegan Sun as part owners. They have an awesome arena and New England lacrosse is steadily catching New York and Maryland, which are the traditional lacrosse hot beds. The popularity of the sport in this part of the country makes it a perfect host.
First practice session was that Saturday night from 7-9pm. It felt great to get out there with the team and get after it. The team is fairly young but there is a lot of talent on the Black Wolves. The first session went well with a lot of good drills to end with a scrimmage. After that session ended we went back to the Mohegan Sun Hotel, got some sleep and had to be up early Sunday for our 8-10 am second session.
This session was also a good one, we did some 1 on 1s, 2 on 2s, shooting and transitiondrills along with another scrimmage. Everyone was playing hard and intense because we’re all fighting for spots on this team.
Overall, the weekend went awesome and it was a good step for the club, but now we only get better from here on out.
