Hi, this is Fred Wallace with ” Off the Wire “.
There were official announcements and pending announcements earlier this week in Ontario Lacrosse circles.
The official announcement came from Ontario Series Lacrosse as they formally confirmed that the Clearview Crushers will be joining the Senior loop.
Scheduled to play out of the Stayner Memorial Arena, the Crushers have a mandate to be fully competitive and grow the sport in their region.
Clearview will compete with 5 existing teams including the Owen Sound Bug Juice Senior NorthStars.
The pending announcement is the official shuffle of the Brampton Excelsiors Major franchise to Owen Sound for the next lacrosse season.
Earlier this week, I spoke with Major Commissioner Doug Luey on the upcoming shift and he touched all the bases.
First, he was disappointed the news leaked and created a social media storm before the proper channels had approved the alteration.
Second, he’s disappointed for Brampton which has had an extremely long run with the Excelsiors operation.
To that end though, Commissioner Luey admits the Brampton operation was not well supported, which brings us to Owen Sound.
Commissioner Luey holds Owen Sound in high regard as a site for Major Lacrosse.
Through the years, support at every level has been strong
Commissioner Luey has every confidence in the key players of the Owen Sound operation.
Citing the last season of the Excelsiors, he relates Owen Sound is inheriting a good, young squad.
And overall, Doug Luey believes that the day will come that Owen Sound is hosting a Mann Cup Canadian Championship Final
I’m Fred Wallace