Getting to Know…Western Lacrosse Association
Posted: July 31, 2012 Filed under: Getting to Know..., MB 2013 Leave a comment »The Western Lacrosse Association is an amateur league of men’s senior A box lacrosse (also known as indoor lacrosse) based in southwestern British Columbia. In other words, it’s perfect for MegaBracket. The caliber (or calibre if you prefer) of play is very high as many players compete in the National Lacrosse League (also in MB) in the WLA off-season. There are seven teams in the WLA and several of the names are fantastic. As a result, you’re getting a large GtK as a gift today…
Burnaby Lakers
Location: Burnaby, British Columbia (population: 223,218 as of 2011 – 3rd largest city in BC)
Coat of Arms: Here. [Ed. Note – Coat of arms are typically hilarious so we’re adding them in when applicable.]
Incorporated: 1892
Named After: Legislator, speaker, Freemason, and explorer Robert Burnaby. Other landmarks in the area similarly named include Burnaby Mountain, Burnaby Park and Burnaby Lake.
Fun Fact #1: Earned city status in 1992, exactly 100 years after it was incorporated.
Fun Fact #2: British Columbia’s largest commercial mall, and the second largest in all of Canada, the Metropolis at Metrotown, is located in Burnaby.
Fun Fact #3: EA Canada, the Canadian arms of Electronic Arts, headquarters in Burnaby. Games developed at the Burnaby location include many Need for Speed titles as well as Skate, which included tips for the game from MB favorite Rob Dyrdek.
Fun Fact #4: Burnaby’s official flower is the rhododendrum
Notable Natives and Residents: Actress Carrie-Anne Moss (Matrix trilogy, Disturbia); magician Murray SawChuck; singer Michael Buble; actor Michael J. Fox (I’m not even going to start listing things or we’ll be here all day. OK, I lied – Back to the Future I, II & III, Teen Wolf (which is terrible), Scrubs guest star, Family Ties, Doc Hollywood, Spin City, The Secret of My Success. Now I’m done); and a bunch of hockey players
Coquitlam Adanacs
Location: Coquitlam, British Columbia (population: 126,456 as of 2011)
Coat of Arms: Here.
Incorporated: 1908
Fun Fact #1: The Coast Salish people were the first to live in the area and archaeology has confirmed continuous human occupation of the area for at least 9,000 years.
Fun Fact #2: Explorer Simon Fraser went through the area in 1808 and Europeans began settling the land in the 1860s.
Fun Fact #3: The Coquitlam Reds play in the British Columbia Premier Baseball League. Former NL MVP Larry Walker is an alumnus of the Reds. (It’s worth mentioning that Walker’s theme song is Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne, which makes a fine ring tone for your cell phone alarm.) Coquitlam also placed 3rd in the 1984 Little League World Series.
Fun Fact #4: The team’s nickname – Adanac – is simply Canada spelled backwards. Do not believe for a second that Canadians are not creative.
Notable Residents: Juno-award winning musician Matthew Good; former NBA player Lars Hansen, who logged 205 minutes in 15 games in 1978-79 for the NBA Champion Seattle Supersonics (which may or may not be a real team) in his only season; Playboy playmate and actress Dorothy Stratten, who was Playmate of the Year in 1980 and appeared in several movies before being murdered by her estranged husband; former British Columbia Lions kicker Lui Passaglia, a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and one of just 8 players to have his number retired by the Lions. Passaglia holds CFL records for seasons played (25), regular season games played (408) and regular season points (3,991). He was a member of 3 Grey Cup-winning teams and was twice named the Grey Cup’s Most Valuable Canadian. Interestingly, Passaglia scored 2 touchdowns in his 25-year career – one in his first game in 1976 (a 10-yard reception) and one in his final home game in 2000 (a 1-yard run).
Langley Thunder
Location: Langley, British Columbia (population: 25,081 as of 2011). [A Langley township also exists with a population of more than 110,000. For the purposes of fun facts and notable people, we will combine them.]
Motto: “Strength of Purpose, Spirit of Community”
Incorporated: 1955
Fun Fact #1: Langley was represented in the 2011 Little League World Series.
Fun Fact #2: Langley is home to a very large annual car show, the Langley Cruise-In, held each September. The city is also home to the Langley Ukelele Ensemble.
Fun Fact #3: The first Europeans to stay in the area (as is often the case in western Canada) were traders from the Hudson’s Bay Company. They built Fort Langley on the banks of the Fraser River (named, of course, for the aforementioned Simon Fraser) in 1827.
Fun Fact #4: The city broke off from the township in 1955 to form a municipality as the township would not provide common amenities such as street lights.
Notable People: Actress Amanda Crew (Final Destination 3, She’s the Man, Charlie St. Cloud); Toronto Blue Jays 3B Brett Lawrie; Actor Roger Cross (X2, 24, The Chronicles of Riddick) attended Trinity Western University in Langley;
Maple Ridge Burrards
Location: Maple Ridge, British Columbia (population: 76,502 as of 2011)
Mottoes: “Rivers of bounty, Peaks of Gold” and “Deep Roots, Greater Heights”
Incorporated: 1874
Fun Fact #1: At one time, Maple Ridge hosted the only North American high volume manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries. However, the factory suffered major layoffs due to the 2008 recession and now hosts only a small product testing team.
Fun Fact #2: In 2011, there were more than 900 bear sighting in Maple Ridge. 16 bears were declared to be “problem” bears and had to be destroyed. (So, not a fun fact for the bears.) If you ever find yourself in Maple Ridge learn how to avoid interacting with bears through the Bear Aware program.
Fun Fact #3: The Fraser River Heritage Walk links key heritage sites in Maple Ridge, including the Maple Ridge Museum and a 1944 Canadian Pacific Railroad, one of the few remaining all-wood cabooses from the World War II area.
Fun Fact #4: Like any self-respecting Canadian city, Maple Ridge has a curling club, the Golden Ears Winter Club. From the looks of the pictures on the website, curling and drinking seem to go well together. As if I needed more reason to have curling listed #1 on “Why I Will Move to Canada Someday”, just ahead of “Republicans and Democrats”.
Notable People: Larry Walker again although this time Maple Ridge is his hometown, not just somewhere he played; musician/actress Alexz Johnson (So Weird, Final Destination 3); NHL Hall-of-Famer Cam Neely (who also played “Seabass” in Dumb and Dumber and Me, Myself, and Irene); actor Tyler Labine (Rise of the Planet of the Apes).
Nanaimo Timbermen
Location: Nanaimo, British Columbia (population: 83,810 as of 2011)
Coat of Arms: Here.
Nicknames: The Hub, The Harbour City
Incorporated: 1874
Fun Fact #1: Has been dubbed the “Bathtub Racing Capital of the World”.
Fun Fact #2: The first Europeans in the area were Spanish explorers in 1791. The Hudson’s Bay Company (again) built a fort known as the Nanaimo Bastion in 1853 after being informed of the presence of coal by Snuneymuxw chief Ki-et-sa-kun.
Not-So-Fun Fact #3: The coal discovered in the area was valuable but also dangerous. The 1887 Nanaimo Mine Explosion killed 150 workers and was described as the largest man-made explosion until the Halifax Explosion, when a French cargo ship loaded with wartime explosives, blew up in the Halifax harbor. Just one year later, in 1888, another explosion at the Nanaimo Mine killed another 100 workers.
Fun Fact #4: The forestry industry replaced coal mining as the economic driving force in the area in the 1960s. The MacMillan Bloedel pulp mill built in 1958 injects well over a half million dollars per day into the local economy.
Fun Fact #5: The Nanaimo Concert Band, established in 1872, is known as the oldest continuous community band in Canada.
Fun Fact #6: The Nanaimo bar, a no-bake cookie bar, is a Canadian dessert bar named after the city and has been elected as “Canada’s Favourite Confection”.
Notable Residents: Raymond Collishaw, the 3rd highest scoring British Ace in World War I, with 60 confirmed kills; actor Cameron Bright (Twilight saga, Thank You For Smoking); actor Justin Chatwin (War of the Worlds, 1 episode of Lost); actor Cory Monteith (Finn from Glee); former NHL player Gene Carr, the 4th pick of the 1971 draft; actor/magician Christopher Hart, who “played” Thing, the disembodied hand in all 3 Addams Family movies; baseball player Jimmy Claxton, the first black man to play organized white baseball in the 20th century, playing 2 games for the Oakland Oaks in the Pacific Coast League in 1917.
Victoria Shamrocks
Location: Victoria, British Columbia (population: 80,032 as of 2011)
Coat of Arms: Here.
Motto: “Forever Free”
Incorporated: 1862
Fun Fact #1: The city’s Chinatown is North America’s 2nd-oldest, trailing only that of San Francisco. It is also one of the oldest cities in the Pacific Northwest, with British settlements dating to 1841. Many historic buildings have been retained with the most famous being the British Columbia Parliament Building and the Empress hotel.
Fun Fact #2: Let’s just copy this part directly from Wikipedia – “Despite Victoria’s reputation as a tourist destination, a pervasive homelessness, loitering, and panhandling problem continues to be a serious problem the downtown area, as does the “open-air” drug use.” Canada, fuck yeah!
Fun Fact #3: Esquimalt Harbor, just west of the city, became the North Pacific home of the Royal British Navy in 1865 and remains Canada’s west coast naval base. The Port of Victoria became one of North America’s largest importers of opium in the 1860s. Opium trade was legal and unregulated until 1865 and was banned altogether in 1908.
Fun Fact #4: The Victoria Cougars are the most famous sports team in the city’s history. They won the 1925 Stanley Cup as a member of the Western Hockey League (won in a season-ending series against the champions of the National Hockey Association. They are the last non-NHL team to win the Stanley Cup. The team returned to the final series in 1926 but lost to the Montreal Maroons. The WHL dissolved after the 1925-26 season and the rights to many of the Victoria players were purchased and relocated to Detroit. The team retained the Cougars name at first but was soon renamed to the Detroit Red Wings. (Stuff like this is why I write these. Knowledge!)
Notable People: MLB pitcher (and nearly permanent resident of the disabled list) Rich Harden; NBA 2-time MVP Steve Nash; Grammy Award-winning singer Nelly Furtado; music producer David Foster, who has produced records for “some of the most successful artists in the world, such as Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Céline Dion, Andrea Bocelli, Toni Braxton, Madonna, Air Supply and Michael Jackson.” Yes, they threw Air Supply in there. Couldn’t agree more.
New Westminster Salmonbellies
The Salmobellies are introduced last as they are clearly the cream of the name crop in the WLA, and perhaps all of MB.
Location: New Westminster, British Columbia (population: 65,976 as of 2011)
Coat of Arms: Here.
Motto: “In God We Trust” – (It feels like I’ve heard that one before.)
Founded: 1858
Fun Fact #1: New Westminster became the first city in British Columbia to be incorporated and elect a municipal government. The city was intended to be the capital city of the colony of British Columbia. However, the colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island were united in 1866. On the day of the vote for the capital between Victoria and New Westminster, some shady political tactics were used by Victoria supporters. Take it away, Wikipedia – “On the day of the vote one member of the assembly, William Cox (one of the colony’s Gold Commissioners and a Victoria supporter), shuffled the pages of the speech that William Franklyn from Nanaimo (a New Westminster supporter) intended to give, so that Franklyn lost his place and read the first paragraph three times. Cox then popped the lenses of Franklyn’s glasses from their frames so that the Nanaimo representative could see nothing at all of his speech. After a recess to settle the resulting uproar and allow the member from Nanaimo a chance to sort out his speaking notes and his spectacles, on the members’ return to the House of Assembly, the Speaker John Sebastian Helmcken (from Victoria) refused to allow Franklyn a “second” chance to speak. The subsequent vote was 13 to 8 against New Westminster.” One dude popped the lenses out of the other’s guy glasses so he couldn’t read the speech? Classic Three Stooges move!
Fun Fact #2: In 1878, the Government of Canada opened the British Columbia Penitentiary in New Westminster, the first federal prison west of Manitoba. The building housed maximum-security prisoners for 102 years, closing in 1980.
Not So Fun Fact #3: The city had one of the first and largest Chinatowns in North America in the late 19th century. However, the Great Fire of 1898 destroyed much of the city, including all of Chinatown. The area was rebuilt only sparingly after the fire and there is no Chinatown in current New Westminster.
Fun Fact #4: The city was originally to be called Queensborough, but Queen Victoria herself decided to name the town New Westminster.
Fun Fact #5: The city’s Front Street district was used in the movie I, Robot as futuristic Chicago.
Bonus Salmonbelly Information: The Salmonbellies are one of the oldest professional lacrosse teams in Canada, dating back to 1888. They have won the Mann Cup 24 times (awarded to Canada’s mens lacrosse champion), and New Westminster serves as the home of the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Their official website can be found here. If you are looking for some sweet Salmonbelly gear (and why wouldn’t you), head to their official online store. Courtesy of the Royal BC Museum’s BC Archives Collection, here is a picture of the 1908 Salmonbellies squad. Note that the picture declares them “Champions of the World”.
Notable Residents: Astronaut Robert Thirsk, who holds the Canadian records for longest space flight and most time spent in space; Mike Reno, lead singer of Loverboy; actor Bruno Gerussi, who is not at all famous but was in this movie; actor Raymond Burr, best known for his work in TV shows Perry Mason and Ironside and in the classic movie Rear Window (starring the author’s favorite all-time actor Jimmy Stewart); and a bunch of hockey players
Recent Comments