LANGLEY, British Columbia — Joel White clutched the United States flag as he walked through the floor level corridor of Langley Events Centre on Wednesday afternoon. The captain of the U.S. indoor national team, White got the honor of being the flag bearer for the opening ceremonies of the World Indoor Lacrosse Championship.
As soon as he stepped out of the tunnel, onto the floor and into the spotlights that littered the arena, the moment became real.
“You get a little bit of a tingling feeling and you start to walk out,” he said. “It hits you like ‘Hey, we’re here’ and then you put the game face on and get ready to play. It was a complete honor. For me to be able to hold that flag and walk across that stage there was pretty cool. It just represents all the guys that came before and the young players that want to be in these shoes."
White, making his second appearance at the world championship, stood alongside Anthony Kelly, the 39-year-old former professional lacrosse star who towered over opponents for the better part of a decade. He last stepped onto the world championship stage in 2007, helping the U.S. win bronze.
Behind them were a slew of names, some new and some old. There were veterans of the box game, piling up years in the NLL. There were plenty that made their debuts within the last calendar year.
The U.S. team that made its entrance into the World Indoor Lacrosse Championship on Wednesday is one that represents a growing trend of Americans in the indoor game. Now, the U.S. national team has a chance to show its progress on the world stage over the next 11 days.
“We’re just trying to prove something here and show that we’ve come a long way since we started this thing,” White said. “People are just expecting us to lose to Canada and the Iroquois and toss up with the other teams. We want to win games here.”
This week also presented an opportunity for the members of the U.S. team to get together for the first time since a May training weekend in Baltimore. Many traveled early this week from locations like New York, Baltimore, Columbus and Denver. Others, like David Mather and Chris O’Dougherty, drove across the border from the Seattle area.