HISTORY OF LACROSSE IN DELTA

Lacrosse is among the longest standing sports played in Delta. Lacrosse started in Delta in 1904 at a time when the sport was immensely popular across Canada with the formation of the Ladner Lacrosse Club. The club was organized with William Henry Ladner as Honourable President, P. Shirley as President, Frank J. MacKenzie as Vice President and R. Smith as Secretary Treasurer. Others on the original committee included H.K. Wright, W.H. Smith and club captain W.H. Wilson.

Shortly after in 1906, H.N. Rich of Ladner donated a field that the lacrosse teams could use. Despite the relatively small size of the community, Delta grew to three adult lacrosse teams by 1912 - the Ladner Beavers, the Westham Island Maple Leafs and the East Delta Shamrocks. It seems to have been an open question in the pre-World War I years whether enough people could get together each season to compose a team. In 1914, a team from neighbouring Richmond competed with Delta teams while the East Delta team appeared not to have made to the end of the season. Because of the absence of a community newspaper between late 1914 and early 1922, little is documented of the stat of local lacrosse but it can be guessed at that, like everything else, much was put hold due to the war effort and the absence of some of the young adult men in the community.

Delta team competed for the Frank MacKenzie Cup, in which Westham Island most often came out on top. The Delta Optimist of the 1920's recorded very little about lacrosse during this period, focusing most of its sports coverage on local baseball games. For some years during the 1920's, Delta appears to have had only one adult lacrosse team from Westham Island playing teams from other local municipalities.

Up to this point, field lacrosse had been the dominant form of play but box lacrosse was quickly taking its place. While there were some lacrosse boxes in Delta, none were appropriate for competitive league play until the Ladner Lacrosse Box was built in 1936, which all of the Delta area teams thereafter used for league play. Teams of different levels during this period included Westham Island, Ladner and Chewassen. Other early teams reported to have existed were Boundary Bay (presumably a Point Roberts, WA team), Canoe Pass and Crescent Island. In 1936, Richmond was once again added to the adult league to compete for the MacKenzie Cup. During World War II, teams from Cloverdale and the BC Peat Company were also included in the league.

According to local lacrosse archivist, John Burr, the sport experienced a slump in popularity in Delta after World War II until it was revived in the early 1970's. Lacrosse in Ladner was played for a time at the Memorial Park but was soon moved to the new lacrosse box next to the site of the current Ladner Leisure Centre. Thanks to Darcy Phillips with the help of Jim Canil, the Ladner box received major renovations in 2002. Jim was a key player in establishing a Junior A box lacrosse franchise in Delta. The opening of the Ladner Arena (now the Ladner Leisure Centre) in 1976 moved games indoors and in 1981, the Ladner Senior B Pioneers were born.

Fast forward to today in Delta where lacrosse remains a major sport in the community despite the proliferation of other organized sports. North Delta boasts two lacrosse boxes (Delview Park and Gunderson Park) and Tsawwassen has a lacrosse box next to the South Delta Recreation Centre. in 2022, the box next to Ladner Leisure Centre was upgraded into a covered multi-sport court. Additionally, lacrosse is played indoors at all Delta ice arenas (along with ball hockey) when the ice is taken out for the summer. As of 2023, the Ladner Pioneers have won the Lacrosse Canada President's Cup four times: 1998 in Niagara Falls, ON; 2004 in Langley, BC; 2022 in Edmonton, AB; and 2023 in Oakville, ON.