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| Nolan Garrard at practice with Zach Higgins (left) and Steve Fryer. |
The Brooklin Redmen tonight become the
last team to kick off their Major Series Lacrosse season when they
play host to the Brampton Excelsiors. They'll be going with the same
goaltending tandem that performed well for them last year in Zach
Higgins and Steve Fryer. But if either of those two are
unavailable, they have a young man who would be more than happy to
step in and fill a spot. Nolan Garrard practiced with the
Redmen recently and hopes for nothing more than to one day be a
Redman.
When we say a young man, we
really mean it. Nolan is a 7-year-old tyke 2 player in his first year
of lacrosse. He plays on the same team as Brooklin assistant coach
Paul Stewart's youngest son. The team had a game at Iroquois
Park recently that wrapped up just before the Redmen took the floor
to practice. “His father mentioned to me that he wanted to stick
around and watch the goalies, which I thought was great,” Stewart
said. “Our practices are open and Higgy and Fryer are great guys to
learn from. I thought, he's got his gear on so why not come out and
take a few shots in the warmup and he was having fun so it just sort
of progressed.”
That's right, Nolan not only got to
stay on the floor and learn from the Redmen goalies, he got to take
some shots in warmup and stick around to play net in a few drills.
Talk about a dream come true for a young fan and player, especially
given that Higgins is his favourite player. And Nolan did a good job
in his stint in goal. “I got to work with the goalies. And the
Redmen got to shoot on me. Some of them got some goals but most of
them didn't,” he said.
Once he got in, Nolan wasn't too keen
to come out of the net, according to Stewart. “I'd say he went in
the first three or four drills. With the group of guys we have with
the Redmen they had fun with it and there was never a danger of him
taking a hard shot or getting hurt or anything. He was right in
there, I actually had a hard time getting him to let the other two
guys rotate in. It was pretty funny.”
While Nolan and the players were having
fun with the situation, Stewarts says the young goalie was actually
pretty intense while he was in the net. “He really wants that third
spot. We don't have a third goalie right now so he was intense.”
Stewart has since talked to Nolan's dad
and learned that Nolan really did have fun with the whole thing, and
Stewart says it was no big deal for him and the team to do but is
something that Nolan will remember for the rest of his life. “It's
really a testament to the players of the Redmen who made it so fun
for him,” Stewart says.
For now the Redmen will stick with
Higgins and Fryer in net as they get the 2014 season under way and
start to chase their goal of winning the Mann Cup.
