For almost two full years, the lacrosse sticks sat silent, almost untouched, just one of the many sports where trying to maintain some level of training is near impossible without access to serviceable venues and a host of teammates.

“The only thing you really could do was play catch with a buddy or a sibling or anything,” noted Greater Sudbury Lacrosse Association (GSLA) veteran Ashton Eadie.

That is precisely why he, along with Sudbury U22 Rockhounds teammates Mason Robertson and Alex Hachez are making up for lost time in a big way, combining the time they will spend with their northern Ontario counterparts and mixing in as many games as possible as affiliated players with the Huntsville Hawks of the Ontario Junior C Lacrosse League.

Truth be told, even the existence of a Rockhounds team at this age bracket is hardly a given, with many who have toiled as rep players in their youth opting to pass on the sport in their late teens. Eadie is thankful that hasn’t been the case with this particular grouping.

“There’s a lot of kids who played several years ago and then stopped, but then decided to come back for this team this year,” he suggested of the make-up of what would previously had been known as the Intermediate Rockhounds.

Many are aware of the old saying: absence makes the heart grow fonder – and Covid-19 certainly created an absence of sport.

Thankfully, there is reason for optimism.

“I think we have a good group of guys, some skilled guys and others with a lot of potential,” said Eadie, a 16 year-old grade 11 student at Lasalle Secondary School, discussing the Sudbury squad. “Everybody basically knows each other, so the chemistry is already there.”

Between the pipes sits the familiar face of Mason Robertson, a fellow who made the move to netminder a few years back thanks in large part to the support of his stepfather, Mike Miron, a former goaltender himself in the NLL (National Lacrosse League).

“When I started playing, I was a player – but then we didn’t have a goalie on the team, so I decided to try it out – and Mike has been my coach ever since,” said Robertson, also 16 year old but attending Bishop Alexander Carter Catholic Secondary School in Hanmer. “My dad knows everything I need to know about the game and I’m a pretty big boy, so a good build for the net.”

It was actually a lacrosse colleague known to Miron that kind of kick-started the junior process for this pack, a contact with the Orillia Kings Junior B team that steered the Sudbury troika in the direction of their partnered team in Hunstville.

With Eadie, Hachez and Robertson all meeting, just barely, the age restriction on qualifying to play at this level, it’s not all that shocking that the lads may hit an initial bump or two on the road as they make the jump.

“The game is very different going from playing minor (lacrosse) to playing junior,” stressed Robertson. “It’s a lot faster paced. I have to be able to follow the ball more quickly and throw the ball farther – and the games are much longer.”

“I was really nervous, if I’m going to be honest, to play again,” said Eadie, long recognized as one of the more gifted ball handlers in the region in his age group. “After the first practice, after the first 30 minutes, I could feel the rust coming off; I started to feel comfortable again, everything started to come back.”

“I got the nerves out that first game and now I am ready to go.”

While the concrete floored arenas in Sudbury have never hosted junior lacrosse (or, at the very least, not hosted that level in a long, long time), Eadie is looking forward to the enhanced venues that comes part and parcel of moving up the ranks.

“We have some games coming up on turf arenas,” he said. “I rely a lot on my speed. I need to be able to make quick cuts, quick turns. When we play on a slippery floor, I have to adapt my game because I can’t do that on those floors.”

And while he is obviously a little more comfortable to be joined in Huntsville by the familiar faces of both Hachez and Robertson, it wasn’t as though this was going to be a deal breaker for the young man who simply wants to keep playing.

“I want to make it in lacrosse, so I really didn’t care who was there with me,” said Eadie. “I just want to put in the work.”