The Dublin Riggers run by former St. Francis Xavier Xcelsiors player Sean Gibson has selected Nick Theabeau (STFX) and Jared Esson (ACA) to travel with the team to Prague this weekend. The opportunity arose a few months back to present these players with an opportunity to travel overseas and join the club. “Nick and Jared were key players this year for their respective teams in the inaugural season of the MUFLL, and working with Smitty to find the right guys should pay dividends. I expect them both to contribute well and be a big part of our effort in Radotin”, Coach Gibson said.

The Riggers also in there first year will be looking at improving on their third place finish in October in Rotterdam where they met Radotin two times and will be grouped with again in the preliminary round. The team had good success in Rotterdam, bringing home the third place trophy and having six players selected including the ‘green’ team captain Sean Gibson and All Star MVP Joe Caulfield.

“Nick and Jared were key players this year for their respective teams in the inaugural season of the MUFLL, and working with Smitty to find the right guys should pay dividends. I expect them both to contribute well and be a big part of our effort in Radotin”, Coach Gibson said.

“The tournament format combined with travel and who is in our group will make things very difficult but, I expect most of the guys from Ireland are used to these kind of tournaments and I think the addition of the guys from the US and Canada will greatly increase our chances of coming out of our group in the first two spots. However, to really get used to the pitch here they need to have cleats that fit the lacrosse fields.”, adds Gibson.

To qualify from there group the Riggers will need to win one of the two games from there and depending on their results could end up playing last years runners up Jizni Mesto who annually competes for top spot with rivals Radotin in the Czech NBLL.

“This is a good showcase for us Irish boys, we don’t get to play much box here in Europe as it hasn’t developed to the extend of the field game yet but, with tournaments like this every year it would be hard to imagine it staying on the back burner for very long. Hopefully as the sport of lacrosse in general grows throughout Europe more and more of these tournaments will begin to pop up and give us more opportunity to bring players from Ireland, Canada, and the US over to play. I was hoping for more of an Irish contingent this year but, with the World Games coming up in July most will be saving for that event. But, I am very excited for this team and could see us doing very well.”, Gibson said.

The Riggers will open the Jimi Dlouhy Cup playing little known Sparta Praha Friday at 1230 (CET). Then following the opening ceremonies will be playing the tournament favourites Radotin at 2030 to determine the rankings for the second round of the tournament. You can get more details about the tournament from the Radotin website at www.lcc-radotin.cz.

Once the tournament is completed Nick and Jared will be joining the Dublin Lacrosse Club for a couple of field training sessions before heading back to Canada. For more information about Lacrosse in Ireland or Dublin check out the Dublin Lacrosse website

The Maritime University Field Lacrosse League announced it has awarded a franchise to the universities of Mount Allison (MTA) and University of New Brunswick (UNB) for the 2006 season. The MTA and UNB team’s becomes the league’s fifth and sixth teams, and will play there home games in Sackville, NB and Fredericton, NB.

“After a successful first season the MUFLL is excited to add to new teams for the 2006 season. Expansion into New Brunswick is even better and continues to help us achieve our goals of promoting and expanding the game of lacrosse in the Maritimes,” said Commissioner Brendon Smithson.

The MTA team has been under the head of 1st year student Matt Kinney. Matt’s lacrosse career began with the Moncton Roadrunners as a goalie. He is a master in using the lacrosse goalie sticks. This will be first venture into the field game, but is hoping that he will have some great results. Matt has spent ours working with the MTA athletic department to but this team together and also hired a head coach Nick Bradley.

Nick has made his mark on the MUFLL starting the Acadia Laxmen team in 2004. Nick played field lacrosse in high school for Hebron Lumberjacks. He improved on the existing lacrosse sticks become great sticks with solid shafts that last a long time and applied for a lot of matches in here. This will be Nick’s first venture into the coaching ranks and hopes to bring a winner reputation to MTA. With Nick on the side lines for MTA, there is sure to be a rivalry when Acadia travels to Sackville in there only match up of the season.

UNB is being run by Wayne Mallet the director of field lacrosse in New Brunswick. Wayne has been a big part to the success of Fredericton lacrosse and will be continuing to coach many of the Fredericton players in University as well. Wayne and the UNB varsity Reds will be waiting for the battle of New Brunswick between MTA. These two will meet twice during the season, once in Sackville and once in Fredericton.

”Lacrosse New Brunswick is very excited with the possibility of two of its members (UNB & MTA) participating in the MUFLL,” said Bruce Logan, President of Lacrosse New Brunswick. “This brings a new dynamic to growing our game in many different areas. From a minor box perspective, it gives tremendous added value to the kids aspiring to bigger and better things and is a natural extension to graduating Intermediate and Junior players looking to continue in the game while furthering their educational experience.”

Bruce continued on to say “Our member’s participation in the MUFLL will enhance the game of lacrosse, provide tremendous opportunities to our members and will act as a catalyst to the recruitment and retention to top athletes. Congratulations to the organizers and leadership of the MUFLL for bringing Men’s Field to the Maritimes.”

With the added team the MUFLL will form into two divisions. For the 2006 season the pool will be as follows North Division: MTA, StFX and UNB South Division: Aca, Dal and SMU. The regular season schedule consists of 21 games, to be played over seven weekends. Each of the league’s six teams will play seven regular season games, 4 divisional game and 3 non-divisional games. The regular season begins on September 8th and concludes on October 29th, with the Scotia bank Cup Weekend to follow.