The Jr. 'B' tier II Rage lacrosse team has some pre-game fun planned for their home opener Friday night, May 11, at the Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre. 

It all starts at 7:30 p.m. and includes music, player introductions and more. During the intermissions, they may have some young minor league players taking to the floor.

Totem One is the home for the newest team of the Rockyview Lacrosse Assoc. that provides more players the opportunity to continue the sport after their minor league play ends. It's largely formed by Airdrie and Cochrane players.

"There's a lot of kids that end up having to retire at 16 and they're grade 11 students in high school," says head coach Kent Proctor. "A lot of them have played for years, so it's shame a lot of them don't have another opportunity to continue. I just couldn't see the kids retiring because they didn't have a place to play."

There's been a huge learning curve early in the season for the young team and while they have a 1-5 record they're improving each game.

"I'm not at all concerned about the record. We're going to get a handful of wins here in the next little bit. The schedule was a bit front-end loaded but it's was a good way to get everybody climatized to the league. Right now, we still playing teams with more years of experience on the roster than what we have in games of junior experience. So, we're giving up an average of two to three years."

"I'm actually really impressed with how competitive a lot of the games have been. For some thick stretches of the game, we'll hang with the team and then, being a short a few runners, we run out of steam. In lacrosse, it's not hard to score a lot of goals in bunches."

Proctor says junior lacrosse rosters and always in flux and there's always the opportunity to add more players to their roster of 20 players.

"We're always recruiting and we're recruiting for next year, too."

The Rage face the Wranglers Friday night, a team they met earlier in the season. They lost that one 10-2 but Proctor believes it to be closer this time around.

"We have a bit more of experience this time around. I would expect a closer game, but you just never know. We're getting better every game."