It was war on the floor at the Sunshine Coast Arena Saturday afternoon.
A packed house was treated to the "best game on two feet" as the New Westminster Salmonbellies and Westshore Bears locked up in an exciting Junior B exhibition lacrosse game.
The action was fast and furious with goals coming in bunches. Nine goals in all were scored in the first period, with the Bears holding a 5-4 advantage after the opening 20 minutes.
The parade to the net continued in the second with 11 more goals.
The Bears held an 8-5 advantage just over six minutes into the period, but the Salmonbellies peppered Bears' goalie Jeff Shiplack with a flurry of shots, scoring five unanswered goals to take a 10-8 lead.
Westshore came back with two late goals to tie the game at 10-10 after 40 minutes.
But inexperience and undisciplined played caught up with Westshore in the third, as they took a few untimely penalties.New West capitalized scoring seven times, including two power play goals to win going away 17-11.
Nat D'Amato scored five goals for New West, while Curtiss Hoyland and Lucas Major each scored three. Jaff Johnston fired home a pair with Eric Ross, Daryl Borik, Ryan McEwen and Curtis Sansregret adding singles.
Tyler Hass scored three for the Bears with Ryan Alexander and Rob Potts each adding a pair. Single goals went to Kyle Hussey, Kevin Breen, Scott Dyrda and Tarek Gebali.
"It was a lot of fun coming up here, and the guys played a great game," said New West coach Lance Osborne. "We're in second place and it looks like it's going to be us and Coquitlam going head-to-head again. The boys were really surprised and excited to see such a great crowd out to watch the game. It's great to be a part of things like this and promote the game."
"It wasn't the result I wanted, but it gave us something to work with," added Bears' coach Ken Alexander. "New West is the top team on the Mainland and we know that. Right now we're the top team on the Island. We've started our season and they've played about 11 games and we've played about five, so we're just a bit behind them in the maturity of our players. "This is a second-year team. We're building and approaching things in a professional attitude. We're very happy to be here and be a part of promoting lacrosse. We hope it was an entertaining game for the fans and that they enjoyed it."
Jim Cooper, from the Sunshine Coast Lacrosse Association (SCLA) said the event exceeded expectations.
"It was fantastic. Both teams put on a really good show. It was more than we could have hoped for fan-wise, and the game was great," said Cooper. "We've got our program and the score sheet going into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame to commemorate the first time senior lacrosse has been played on the Sunshine Coast. We're delighted."
Cooper said the original idea was to bring in some high calibre lacrosse to show local players how the game can be played."That snowballed into an event for the whole community. Both teams were just fantastic to deal with and had a lot of fun too, so it was a win-win situation for everyone," he added. "It has been a fantastic year for lacrosse for us. We had Powell River's development day and have played games with Powell River. We now have a great connection with them. And this day was great for us. We're going to Powell River at the end of the season to play three games. It will be by far our best season we've had.
"Next year we hope to get the younger kids back and continue the development. I think lacrosse has a great foothold in this community now, and people are starting to see what a fine game it is."
