Was Saturday night’s lacrosse match in Fort Worth a rivalry game? I’d like to think so.
The Saskatchewan Rush played Panther City Lacrosse Club. As an expansion team and the league’s only Texas-based franchise, PCLC doesn’t have a ready-made nemesis. Those of you who follow this space know I’ve played the Saskatchewan-based team’s nickname for schtick, as if they should have asked permission before using my name for their own purposes. In a recent installment, I got Will Malcom to offer to add some extra vigor to his crosschecks when they played the (hated) Rush.
PCLC looked create some homegrown pride by using “Texas Forever” as their theme for the evening. The loudspeakers played cuts by the likes of ZZ Top, Robert Earl Keen, and Pat Green. A fan on the video screen had to try to pronounce Texas town names like “Mexia” and “Boerne.” The “Boot Cam” cameras found appropriate footwear with “Don’t Mess With Texas” imprinted on the leather.
The crowd saw the type of game that can create rivalries.
“They’re always very intense and bring the aggression. And I think we did a really good job of matching them on that,” noted Malcom.
The Fort Worth team had dropped their first meeting, and coming into Saturday that result was the difference between the two squads’ win totals.
“We went to Saskatoon and we didn’t play our best,” said PCLC head coach Tracey Kelusky. “Kudos to the guys because they stepped up (tonight).”
The teams traded goals throughout, and the Rush scored two late ones to send the game to sudden-victory overtime. Malcom then scored his fifth goal of the contest to end it.
The rubber match happens April 5th in Fort Worth. If one or both teams gets hot between now and then, the matchup could have playoff implications.
“In the Western Conference, the whole thing is a rivalry,” said Kelusky.
The Rush have won a couple of championships in Saskatchewan since they moved there from Edmonton in 2016, so Panther City could do worse than aspire to match the club’s achievements on the floor. They can also look to them as a measuring stick off the field in terms of creating a niche for their sport in a new place.
“It’s blown up tremendously,” said Rush forward Jeff Shattler. “From when the Rush came to Saskatchewan, it’s doubled in population, the lacrosse community. So I think it’s really, really cool the way the communities have taken it in.”
Box lacrosse is very much a Canadian-dominated game. Every player for the Rush comes from Canada, and most of Panther City’s squad does, too. But Saskatchewan has not traditionally had the same devotion to the game as some other provinces, especially Shattler’s native Ontario. As he plays his final season in the National Lacrosse League, the multiple-time title winner and former MVP hopes to continue to expand the reach of his sport.
“I started the Shattler Lacrosse Academy,” he explained. “It’s the first lacrosse academy in the province. And I’m very, very proud about it. It’s kicking off in September, then we run programs throughout the province, northern, southern, it’s really spread out to Saskatchewan.”
Being spread out is one thing Texas has in common with Canadian provinces. Amazingly, Fort Worth actually sits about a hundred miles closer to Saskatoon than does Toronto. What these men do for a living can play a role in bridging the differences those distances create.
“Sport is a really easy way for people to really commit to one another and join a family and that’s lacrosse, hockey, or whatever it may be bringing communities together and people putting their differences aside and going out there and enjoying the game,” said Shattler. “Sport really brings communities together, families together, enemies together.”
The game’s theme coincided with the celebration of Texas Independence Day earlier in the week. It marks a time when neighboring territories didn’t have sport or anything else bringing enemies together. The result of those animosities was a war, in that case with Mexico.
Indoor lacrosse is a tough, physical game. But as I watched on Saturday, I felt lucky to be in a place where people from one country had ventured to another and the most violent acts they committed resulted in no more than a two-minute penalty. The sports industry and the rest of the world has spent much of the week trying to process a much more serious rivalry between nations. The first syllable of the prime belligerent, ironically, sounds like the name I share with a lacrosse team.
“There’s a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world right now,” Shattler said, keeping the evening in perspective. “We still got to travel to Texas and play a game of lacrosse that we love.”
“This is our sanctuary,” said Kelusky of the cross-border travel most of his team makes to play lacrosse.
Malcom noted that at PCLC games, “We play both anthems.” As Saskatchewan’s team took the floor Saturday, the song “Spirit of Radio” played – there are a lot of “Rush” fans around the world thanks to a certain Ontario band. I’d like to think sport, music, and the freedom to make other cultural exchanges have done a lot to help keep the U.S.’s borders peaceful since the mid-19th century.
Shattler plays his international lacrosse for an indigenous people’s team, the Iroquois Nationals. The NLL has no Russian players, and thus didn’t face any decisions about whether they would be allowed to compete or not. I tend to like the idea of athletes from different countries competing together in peace, even if their governments make it awkward. It provides the common ground to peacefully interact over silly nicknames, or crosschecks, or game-winning goals.
In fact, maybe the best thing about a rivalry game is that it’s just a game. The world needs more of those kinds of rivalries.
