Through hundreds of lacrosse games that he has contested to date, Malik Jakubo has never once seen his match interrupted due to a kangaroo bounding across the floor.

And while that statement continues to hold true, the odds of said strange occurrence taking place recently increased dramatically for the 16 year old grade 10 student at St Charles College – or so he believed.

“Everyone had these expectations that we would just walk across the street and find a kangaroo,” said Jakubo with a laugh, just back from his lacrosse-related sojourn down under, an experience he enjoyed with fellow Sudbury Rockhounds Alex Hachez, Ben Harris and Mason Lachance.

“They explained that kangaroos there are kind of like deer here: sometimes you see some, sometimes you don’t. Fortunately, we did have the chance to go to a golf course that was kind of a kangaroo sanctuary.”

Now just to be clear, sightings of the national animal of Australia that is showcased on the country’s coat of arms was not the primary purpose of the visit that Jakubo and friends would make to the suburb of Altona located within the metropolis of Melbourne, home to some five million residents.

The northern Ontario lads would comprise about 25% of the Canadian entry to the Commonwealth Cup, a five-team tournament contested for the fourth time this year and organized in concert with the Canadian Lacrosse League, with teammates joining in from British Columbia, Alberta, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.

Given the current summer conditions in Australia, the box lacrosse competition was staged in an outdoor venue, with the Canadian side noting both similarities and variances when it came to assessing the styles of play favoured clear across the other side of the world.

“The offenses were run similar – there wasn’t really a big, big difference,” said Jakubo. “But the Australian defense is different. They play a (four man) box and then put one guy in the middle – and they let you shoot from the outside. Most other teams play man on man and chase you everywhere.”

One of the athletes entrusted with creating offense for Team Canada, Jakubo explained that attacking against this particular set-up that they had rarely seen before did require some in-tournament adjustments.

“If they were playing that box plus one, then you would try and bait them into following you so that you can run a pick and roll, or you move it around until one guy falls out of place and you’ve got an open shot.”

Of course, there were some strategies in play that are pretty much universal – including trying to capitalize on a roster size differential as a dozen Canadian rosters went toe to toe with a lineup of more than 20 very fit Aussies in the final.

“They’re pretty quick and they had some pretty big boys on that team,” noted Ben Harris, a veteran of the Sudbury Rockhounds program who is looking to turn his attention to coaching this summer. “They were trying to run is the whole game so we had to use the shot clock to our advantage, for sure.”

Like Jakubo, Harris acknowledged that there were elements of this adventure that were new and quite eye-opening – including the starting point of voyaging from Sudbury to Melbourne. “All I knew was that it was a long trip to get there, with two or three layovers,” said Harris with a smile.

“I took a lot of drowsy Gravol and downloaded some movies on my computer,” he added. “I tried to sleep through the 13-hour flight and luckily I slept about seven hours on the way there.”

Truth be told, one can always learn, whether those learnings be sport-specific or not.

“I actually did not know that Australians drive on the other side (left-hand side) of the road,” confessed Jakubo. “When we left the airport, I got kind of freaked out. That caught me off guard.”

And who knows where new found knowledge might lead down the road.

“The people there were awesome,” said Harris. “I would move there – maybe in the future. You never know.”