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.