Lacrosse Braves welcome blasts from their past
TheRecord.com - Sports - Lacrosse Braves welcome blasts from their past
By Christine Rivet, Record staff
KITCHENER — What’s old is new again for the Kitchener-Waterloo Braves.
The Jr. A lacrosse team welcomed some former players back into the fold at its recent annual general meeting.
Former Braves player, coach, general manager and team president Lawrie Hallman was acclaimed the team’s new president. Fellow former Braves players, longtime pro Colin Doyle, and Hallman’s son, Corey, also a former team coach and GM, will direct the hiring committee for the Braves’ latest coach and manager.
Now into his sixth decade in the game, the senior Hallman said his top priorities include hiring qualified staff, shoring up the team’s finances, and ensuring the Kitchener-Waterloo Minor Lacrosse Association and the Braves are on the same page. “I have a dream and that dream is to watch the Braves succeed,” said the 56-year-old Hallman, a vice-president of information technology for a local industrial supplies company.
It’s no secret previous members of the Braves’ board have had difficulty rowing in the same direction because often because of conflicting objectives, Hallman allowed. That’s partly to blame for the team’s lack of on-floor success. The once-proud Braves missed the post season for two straight years and haven’t won a playoff series since 1992.
“I’m convinced we can (turn it around). Am I convinced we can be No.1? Maybe not today. But maybe in two or four years. How ever long it takes.” Hallman said his approach is to develop homegrown talent through the local minor lacrosse system.
“I’m excited that Lawrie’s back,” said Kitchener’s Ian McGough, a longtime lacrosse coach and GM who accumulated three national Sr. B titles with the K-W Kodiaks and the Owen Sound Woodsmen.
McGough was also the Braves head coach when Hallman was the team’s president back in the early 1990s.
“Lawrie runs an organized ship. It all starts off the floor. I know he has the passion for that team to succeed.”
McGough said he’s not interested in either the vacant Braves coaching or GM positions. He’ll serve as a goalie coach for the minor teams, McGough said.
Former Braves GM Rick Wilson has resigned following his two-year stint, while the team’s head coach Jeremy Tallevi will also not return. Tallevi was handed a two-year suspension by the Ontario Lacrosse Association late last season for throwing water bottles in the direction of on-floor officials.
The team intends to hire its new coach and GM by the middle of December, Hallman said.
Kitchener’s Next Lacrosse Wave
WATERLOO — Boris Katchouk is a colourful kid.
That’s why the 12-year-old son of a Soviet speedskater names Buffalo Bandits carrot-sneakered star Mark Steenhuis as his favourite pro lacrosse player.“I like his orange shoes,” says Waterloo’s Katchouk, one of three Kitchener-Waterloo Braves who will play for Ontario at the Lacrosse Festival national indoor championships in Whitby the first week of August.
Katchouk, whose mom Elena was an Olympic long tracker at the Calgary Olympics, doesn’t have orange shoes yet. One day, the peewee Brave will. Maybe bantam Braves Kevin Orleman and Ben Holowaty, the other two provincial box lacrosse teamsters, will add some National Lacrosse League flash to their footwear.
After all, K-W has produced generations of National Lacrosse League winter-season stars, from Steve Dietrich and Colin Doyle to Aaron Wilson and Ryan Benesch.
Every four or five years, another box crop comes through. Katchouk, Orleman and Holowaty may represent the next wave. Perhaps the torch has already been passed. Holowaty got his first lacrosse shaft from Doyle, when he was five.
“I love the momentum going into a big game,” Holowaty says of the sport’s allure. “And the speed of it,
Katchouk and Holowaty are runners. Up the floor on offence. All the way back on defence.
Katchouk’s older brother, Yuri, played lacrosse when the family lived in St. Catharines. The Vancouver-born Katchouk picked it up when he was six because the hockey player wanted to try a new sport. He was smitten.
Holowaty, 14. is the only member of his Kitchener family to chase down hard rubber balls on concrete slabs every summer. When Holowaty was five, the father of his friend, Ryan Maksymyk, asked him to try it. Maksymyk and Holowaty are still Braves teammates.
Orleman, 14, is their goalie. The lean Kitchener kid only became a netminder because his tyke team didn’t have one. So, the eight-year-old Orleman took one for the team.
“I put up my and and said I’d do it,” he recalls.
Orleman’s younger brother, Steven, 11, is a pretty good goalie too. Steven was one of the last cuts for Team Ontario. Seems that tending has become a family tradition. What does Kevin like about it?
“Just the thrill,” he says. “It’s scary.”
That’s because that little rubber ball can leave marks, even through the heavy gear Orleman wears. One ball ricocheted off the post and hit him square in the back. That smarted.
Dietrich, arguably the greatest box goalie ever, left his mark on Orleman’s stick too. The man they call Chugger signed the white plastic on the inside of Orelman’s big basket.
At 40, Dietrich is closing in on 20 years as a lacrosse pro. At 32, Doyle has played a dozen seasons and established himself as one of the game’s great offensive players.
Holowaty wants to play in the NLL one day too. “Yes, I do,” he says. “Just to keep playing. I love the game.”
Orange shoes for everybody.
Lacrosse Articles and Pictures
We would like to create a history for lacrosse in Kitchener-Waterloo. If anyone has articles, team pictures or action pictures, please contact me to arrange getting it posted on the web. Below is a picture of the 1974 Braves, Ontario finalists. Let's create a library for everyone to enjoy.
Looking for Alumni Email Addresses
We are always in search of players who once played for the Braves. I have attached a list of names for players I do not have an email address for. If any of you happen to have the email address for any of these players, please email it to me lawrie.hallman@gmail.com.
Click on list to enlarge.
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