This is always an eventful week, with the annual Harry Kazarian Memorial Minor Lacrosse Tournament commencing tomorrow at various locations in the region and running through the divisional championship games on Sunday at the Harry Lumley-Bayshore Community Centre in Owen Sound.
There’s also a good possibility that this week will be a very emotional week for the Kazarian Family and for their long-time friends and helpers who have operated this tournament for decades.
While they’ve kept a pretty tight lid on it, a number of people connected to the tournament have indicated this will be the last year in its present organizational form.
This isn’t a negative story, not at all. There’s nothing sinister or underlying here.
Purely & simply, time, a LOT of time, has moved on.
Owen Sound Minor Lacrosse started the tournament in the late 1980’s and after a couple of years, the Association approached the Kazarian Family and in a much deserved sporting tribute, the event was christened to honour the sporting legacy of Harry Kazarian who was a star in the sport.
For almost 3 decades, this tournament has been a vibrant booster for lacrosse and for our region.
To conduct such an undertaking doesn’t represent simply one weekend per year, but rather months & months & months of planning, followed by more planning, upgrading, following through & then multiply that process by many, many years.
And now in its fourth decade of operation, the annual Owen Sound based Minor Lacrosse Tournament is facing an alteration in its organizational form, not because anything is wrong, but rather because almost everything went so very well for so very long.
I’m Fred Wallace