The Kodiaks are starting a new chapter in their history and it will be written in Cobourg. The team, which debuted in Kitchener-Waterloo with a highly successful three-year Senior B run before moving up to Major Series Lacrosse in 2006, is heading to the Eastern Ontario city starting this summer after its proposal to move was approved by the MSL board at the draft meeting held on Sunday.
Owner Al Orth said the
opportunity to move to Cobourg arose in discussions with the group
that staged KW's “home” game in the city last summer, when about
1,800 fans showed up to see the Kodiaks play the Peterborough Lakers.
Another game was being arranged for Cobourg this summer and the talks
grew into a permanent move with a trio of co-owners coming aboard.
“I am really excited about the future
for the Kodiaks in Cobourg,” Orth said. “The three new owners
joining me are John Webb, Eric Graham and Chris
Galbraith. They are great lacrosse people with diverse business
backgrounds and a shared passion for the game. The tremendous fan
support we experienced when we hosted a regular season game vs the
Lakers last summer tells me the Kodiaks will be well supported in
their new Cobourg home.”
The Kodiaks franchise started in Sr B
in 2003 and won the Presidents Cup national championship that year.
They won again in 2005 when they played host to the tournament. KW
went 14-0 in the post-season that summer, riding the stellar
goaltending of current GM Steve Dietrich to a 5-3 win over the
Tri-City (British Columbia) Bandits in a gold medal game watched by
about 2,200 fans.
Fan support has been difficult to
maintain for the team in recent years, with only a few hundred
turning out for most games. That has been a factor in the team's
inability to achieve consistent success on the floor. Orth and his
new partners expect that increased attendance at the Cobourg
Community Centre will help put the team in a better position to be
competitive in an MSL that is probably as deep in talent as it has
ever been.
The Cobourg Kodiaks could get a
competitive boost immediately from a pair of draft picks from Sunday
who would have been unlikely to go play in KW but are much more
likely to make the regular trip now. The Kodiaks selected defender
Adam Bomberry and forward Seth Oakes fourth and fifth
overall. Both live in Akwesasne and played for the town's Jr B
Indians, leading them to a Founders Cup title last year.
Akwesasne (located just inside the
Quebec border where Quebec, Ontario and New York all meet near
Cornwall) is less than four hours away from Cobourg but it can take
anywhere from 6-8 hours to get to KW from there, depending on traffic
as you pass through Toronto.
The Kodiaks will continue to play their
home games on Sunday afternoons in their new home, starting this May.
