By Bruce Campbell
sports Editor
The Okotoks Junior A Raiders’ starting goalie is back where he groomed his skills, but he’s hoping he’s not going to face as many shots as he did as a Midget.
“I had played for Calgary and when I came to Okotoks they were just developing as a new club,” said 18-year-old Greg Hallett. “I was playing for the Okotoks Mustangs in my last two years of Midget. We were still playing the top teams from Calgary and I faced a ton of shots, which helped me out a lot. By the end of the year we were beating some of the top teams.”
After a year with the Calgary Raiders, he’s glad the team has moved to Okotoks.
“I think it is great for our team and lacrosse in Okotoks,” he said. “I think we will have more of a fan base.”
Hallett didn’t go straight to the Calgary Raiders system after leaving the Mustangs, he played in Scotland where lacrosse players are as rare as Loch Ness Monster.
“They aren’t very good,” Hallett admitted about playing in Scotland for a year. “I was only 16 years old and I was playing for the university team, and I didn’t play goal, I played out.”
Despite a lacrosse goalie appearing to almost covering the net, Hallett scoffs at the notion that tending goal in lacrosse is easier than stopping pucks in hockey.
He ought to know. Hallett was a goalie in the Okotoks Minor Hockey Association while growing up and had a brief stint with the Okotoks Junior B Bisons this season before concentration on his studies at SAIT.
“In lacrosse the players have more movement with their stick than in hockey,” he explained.
“The players can reach around you. Also in hockey the shots are always coming from the ice. In lacrosse the ball is coming at the goalie from all different angles... Lacrosse is definitely harder.”
Angus Somerville, vice-president of the Raiders, said Hallett is definitely the team’s goalie of the future.
“He is just in his second year being a Junior A goalie,” Somerville said.
“He has two or three years left. I think he can be the best Junior A goalie in Alberta.”
|
