THUNDER ON COURSE, SAY CLUB EXECS

With the end of the 2010 season coming into view Club president Joe Willmott is decidedly upbeat. General Manager Brock Rose and Head Coach Rey Comeault are also viewing the season as a successful step toward the club’s major goal.

“We believed – and now we’ve confirmed – that we have the foundation for a club that can compete with the best in the league, and the country”, says Willmott. “We have more to do, but the pieces are falling into place.”

Willmott says a championship contender needs up to half a dozen ‘studs’ which he describes as players who comprise the frame of the team.

“We have most of them now, and they’re young.”

Brock Rose agrees and borrows a phrase from the late UCLA coaching icon John Wooden. “I’d call them players with competitive greatness and I firmly believe we have them in the organization now”, Rose says.

After collecting the studs, Willmott looks for another ‘dozen or so’ outstanding players.

‘They’re on the horizon,’ says the President. “For two years, Brock Rose has been positioning the club, with trades and draft picks, to add more outstanding young players from around the province to the Langley team.”

“When we look at the perennial top clubs – Coquitlam, Burnaby, New Westminster and Victoria – we see some very well developed minor programs. But some of the biggest communities on the south side of the Fraser have not been turning out top players at the same rate. There’s a really good minor program developing in Langley and Abbotsford now, but until we get more young people involved, we’ll have to acquire strong players through the draft.” Willmott explains.

In this year’s midget draft Rose and Comeault picked up several young standouts from around British Columbia who will wear Langley’s Royal Blue in the next two years.

It’s all part of Willmott’s plan to win the right to host the Minto Cup the next time it comes to British Columbia. This year, the Cup’s week long tournament will be hosted by Coquitlam. The regular rotation across Canada will bring the tournament back in two or three years.

“That’s when we are planning to be seriously competitive.” says Willmott.

Meantime, from his perch in the press box, Willmott watches the operation grow and the plan develop. This year, the quality and distribution system for video of home games has been dramatically improved, another building block designed to attract the interest of US College field lacrosse stars.

Down on the bench, Coach Comeault sees the young players coping with the frustration of turning in strong performances, and then seeing games slip away – often by very narrow margins.

“They’re not losing heart,” says Comeault. “They come to play every night, and they know they have to put time in to get the experience – and in some cases, the size – that they need to be competitive with the best young lacrosse players in Canada.”

“They’re fighters but they know they have to put in the time to get the experience to become seriously competitive in this league.”continued the coach.

General Manager Brock Rose says “Our players and coaching staff have coalesced. With a firm grasp of not only what is behind them but more importantly what lies directly in front of them. Failure is never fatal and success is never final. We are on a path to meet success head on.”

Pictured below: Joe Willmott at the broadcast location in the press box, with Play-by-Play Announcer, Jake Elliott far right.