NLL Insider

Preparing a team to do battle for the top prize in Jr. A lacrosse is hard enough as it is. Factor in the fact that the beernut gallery is under the impression that your team doesn’t belong in the Minto Cup in the first place and the degree of difficulty increases exponentially. Lucky for the Calgary Mountaineers, they’ve got Tyler Pridham at the helm. Easily one of the top defenders in the province and recently voted the hardest-working player in the league, Captain Pridham spent Friday night foiling Victoria’s plans for a blow-out and tonight will go up against the Edmonton Miners in this summer’s biggest battle of Alberta. Before he got down to the business of spoiling some scorer’s night, Pridham took the time to discuss what it’s like to be written off, being born with no natural skill, and what you’re going to be saying about his team by the time this whole thing’s over.

So looking at the Minto line-up, the Edmonton Miners are the underdogs. You guys are something even beyond underdogs. As captain of the Mounties what do you say to your guys going into this? What’s the feeling in the locker room?
The odds are definitely stacked against us. All three years that we’ve been a Jr. A team no one has really said anything positive about our franchise other than the players from within, but when it gets to be game time, we know that we can do this. We have the heart and the talent to be able to go up against B.C. and Ontario and definitely other Alberta teams. If we go out and play the way we know we can then we have a chance. We know we can compete at this level.

On one hand it might be disappointing to know that people have written your team off already, but on the other hand does it make it easier for you to kind of sit back and enjoy being at the Minto Cup?
Everyone was just so happy that we were hosting anyway. Like I told the guys just before we went out against Victoria: it’s just a game of lacrosse, we’re going out to have a little bit of fun. And it worked perfectly because that’s what we did. We went out and we enjoyed ourselves—even though we didn’t win, even though we lost—we played as a team and we really seemed to be enjoying ourselves. We have to take it in stride that it’s a loss so we can’t be too happy with ourselves but still we were having a lot of fun. It was nice.

For all those people expecting a blow-out Friday, they must’ve been disappointed. You’ve talked about this a bit already but even though you didn’t get the win do you feel like it was a confidence booster?
Definitely. The first thing I said after the game was that we could have taken the game, and everybody instantly agreed with me because there was really only two goals that they earned in five-on-five play. The others were just stupid mistakes; we beat ourselves on those other goals. We were just thinking that if we would have played a tighter game we would have been able to beat them. It was a very big confidence boost that we didn’t get blown out, but still we took it in stride as a team knowing that we have to be better if we come up against them again.

What did you see from your team that you liked? What kept the game close?
Everybody went balls out, pardon my language. We went to the wall every single shift and that was the difference. They were not expecting us to be like that and right now we are playing at a different level than we were when we played at any other time in the season.

Were the Shamrocks everything you expected them to be?
You know what, our coach kept saying that we cannot take them in shock and awe. They’re just lacrosse players like we are, they’re not anybody special. Joel Henry, Aaron McLean and Dustin Wadden, they’ve all played in Calgary so they’re not immortals walking the floor.They’re just regular guys like us. We expected them to be as good as they were, they do have good players but as I said so do we and it was good to go up against them.

Obviously the Miners will be looking to rebound in a big way tonight, you’ve faced them before, are you guys ready for the team that’s going to be coming in?
Oh most definitely. There are two options for how the Miners are going to come out tonight. They’re either going to be coming out mad and taking a lot of penalties and they’re going to be frustrated, or they’re going to come out with a lot of drive. It should be a really good game. I think the winner of the first period will definitely have the upper-hand going into the rest of the game.

What’d you think of the Orangeville Northmen?
I noticed that they’re very calm players, they don’t run around and they take their time on offense. They’re not big guys so we should be able to play containment D. Like I said you can’t think of them as immortals because then you’re already out of the game. When you think like that you’re thinking you can’t beat them. I think we will be able to put an honest effort forward and make it competitive.

I did an Alberta coaches’ poll and you ranked number one for hardest working player. If you got to choose how your coaches and lacrosse peers described you, would that be one of the qualities you’d pick?
It would be, yeah. When people ask me what kind of player I am I tell them that I was born with absolutely no natural lacrosse skill and that it was just my attitude and heart that put me into any kind of position to be playing at this level. From that point on I’ve used my natural athletic ability and learned skills all along the way to bring me to where I am today. It’s been a steep learning curve but it’s been my hard work and drive that’s kept me above the rest.

At the end of this tournament, regardless of the outcome, what is it that you want people to come away saying about the Calgary Mountaineers?
I want them to come away saying that they weren’t the underdogs that were going to get blown-out. I want to earn respect in the lacrosse community for this franchise. It doesn’t matter that we come from Alberta, we’re playing just as hard and just as well as other teams from other provinces and other teams from Alberta. A lot of smack talk has been thrown around. That NLLinsider article that came out—the Minto Cup preview from Paul Tutka—it was almost offensive. I really hope that we silence some of those voices. There’s always going to be a critic, but I hope that there’s some people who start to recognize that there’s a lot of talent coming out of Alberta and that in years to come once we start picking up the program a little more it’s going to be right up there and competitive with Ontario and B.C.

Rate This Story:

(11 votes, average: 4.27 out of 5)

 Loading ...