Lacrosse skills on display in the home of the Jays

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About 50 youngsters participated in an amateur lacrosse skills competition held on Nov. 29 at SkyDome in Toronto as part of the Canadian Aboriginal Festival roster of activities.

This marked the fourth straight year a lacrosse competition has been held in conjunction with North America's largest multi-disciplined arts event.

A pair of professional lacrosse players-Tom Montour and Chris Driscoll-were on hand to help out with the event and to hand out the awards. Both are members of the defending National Lacrosse League (NLL) championship team, Toronto Rock. Also lending a hand was Stu Montour, a Toronto Rock draft pick.

Though the skills competition was open to all players, most of those who competed were Native athletes.

"There's a lot of good talent here," said Tom Montour, who is gearing up for his sophomore season with the Rock.

Participants were divided into novice (ages nine and 10), peewee (ages 11 and 12) and bantam (ages13 and 14) categories. Though there were some tyke (ages seven and eight) players who had pre-registered for the event, a snowstorm in parts of Ontario prevented them from making the journey to SkyDome the morning of the competition.

The skills event featured five categories, including one just for goalies. The top three performers in each event were presented with medals, the winner also receiving a lacrosse jersey. And there were several other prizes awarded, including Toronto Rock tickets.

One of the events was for timed agility, in which participants had to run through an obstacle course while performing certain moves. The clock stopped in that event after the player scored a goal into an empty net.

There was also a shooting accuracy competition. Players had to try to hit a pair of designated targets attached to a net.

Other events included a hardest shot competition and a breakaway segment, in which players had three chances each to score on a goalie.

As for netminders, their event consisted of making the saves on the breakaways.

Thirteen-year-old Kraig Maracle of Six Nations won the bantam breakaway category.

Initially he scored on two out of his three breakaway attempts. But a tiebreaker was needed, because two others also scored a pair of goals.

The tiebreaker went four rounds before Maracle was able to score a goal, ironically on his brother Klayton. The brothers are half of the Maracle quadruplets. Brother Kasey also took part in the skills competition while sister Kassandra did not.

Though he also competed in the skills competition a year ago, Kraig Maracle said it was again a nerve-wracking experience competing in the facility home to Major League Baseball's Toronto Blue Jays, as well as the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts.

"I was still pretty nervous until I started concentrating on what I was doing," Kraig Maracle said.

Tom Montour had a bit of advice for those competitors hoping to follow in his footsteps to play pro some day.

"Work at it as hard as you can," he said. "If they love it enough, they'll get there."

As for Driscoll, who is entering his 12th NLL season, he thought it was a good experience for the participants.

"This is kind of awesome, being able to be at the SkyDome," he said, adding he never had the opportunity to compete in a lacrosse skills challenge while he was growing up.

Though their lacrosse seasons had wrapped up a few months beforehand, Driscoll was happy to see the participants come out to showcase their skills.

"Most of these kids probably play hockey," he said, "and they don't pick up a (lacrosse) stick much in the winter. So this gives them a chance to do so and they can come here and see how they compare to other kids at their level."