Halifax Thunderbirds set to take flight in pro lacrosse league
The new team set to begin play in the National Lacrosse League later this year will be called the Halifax Thunderbirds.
The team name was announced Saturday afternoon at the Nova Centre with hundreds of people attending, filling nearly half of a ballroom.
"I think lacrosse is a sport that once you see it, once you kind of get intrigued [and] you come back a second time, you fall in love with the game very, very easily," said Cody Jamieson, who will play forward for the Thunderbirds.
In September, the league announced the Rochester Knighthawks would be relocating to Halifax to be the league's fifth Canadian franchise.
During Saturday's announcement, team owner and general manager Curt Styres was presented with a beaded medallion of the Thunderbirds' logo.
The league is operating this season with teams in 11 markets, many larger than Halifax. The Canadian teams are the Toronto Rock, Calgary Roughnecks, Saskatchewan Rush, based in Saskatoon, and Vancouver Warriors.
Philadelphia, Denver, San Diego and Buffalo are some of the larger American centres. A New York entry is planned for next season to play out of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y.
Even though Halifax has a population of 400,000 people, Styres says it's a good fit for the team.
"You take a look around, you see a lot of happy people here — you see a lot of cranes in the area," Styres said.
"There's stuff building and you hear the mayor talking about how the population is going to increase and jobs are going to increase and that's a good sign."
The whole team was at the announcement. The league schedule runs from December until April with the playoffs extending into May.
Donna Goguen, president of Lacrosse Nova Scotia, said she's happy to see the sport growing in Halifax with the arrival of the Thunderbirds.
But she said she was initially nervous about the professional team coming because more infrastructure is needed to grow the sport.
"That's my first worry. But then really, it's a good problem to have — to be able to grow such a great sport, and especially in Nova Scotia where there's not a long history of lacrosse in comparison to some of the other provinces," Goguen said.
Goguen said once people watch the sport, they'll be hooked.
"It's a very awesome sport to be part of," she said.
Aidan Sims, a 13-year-old lacrosse player from New Glasgow, N.S., has travelled to New York to watch high-level games.
He said he's pleased with the team name and logo.
"I'm just really happy that we have a team," Sims said. "I've been waiting for us to get a team like this for a while."
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