Last year, it expanded to the north. This year, the Prince George Senior Lacrosse Association is pushing its boundaries in a southerly direction.
During the PGSLA's annual general meeting on Sunday, the association voted to accept Quesnel as its sixth member. The vote was 4-1 in favour of adding Quesnel. One team had travel concerns but went along with what the others wanted, said PGSLA commissioner Glen Scott.
In 2011, the Mackenzie Lumberjacks became the league's fifth member.
"I'm really ecstatic and excited," Scott said of Quesnel's addition. "When I got involved with Prince George senior lacrosse many, many years ago, I always had a vision of Mackenzie and Prince George and Quesnel [being in the league]. Eventually it would be nice to have Williams Lake in there as a true central interior lacrosse association, represented by all of those cities. For this to come to fruition is just so gratifying. It's something that the executive and everybody has worked so hard to make happen and now it is happening."
The league is going into its 22nd season and Scott has been the commissioner from the start.
The four other PGSLA clubs -- the BX Pub Bandits, College Heights Pub Assault, Shooter's Pub Devils and P.G. Stylers -- are all locally-based. Teams played 12 regular-season games each in 2011 and they'll now have 15 each. Playoffs will remain the same, with the top four finishers qualifying.
Discussions between the PGSLA and the Quesnel Lacrosse Association began last season and that led to the QLA submitting a formal letter of interest earlier this winter.
The QLA president is Lisa Scott, daughter of Glen Scott. Lisa Scott said she and the QLA executive are thrilled Quesnel will have a team in the PGSLA this season.
"We're super-excited," said Lisa Scott, noting that having a Quesnel senior team (17-and-over) will give graduating minor players the chance to continue on in their sport.
"It's what you need to keep lacrosse going in any town -- somewhere for the kids [to play] when they finish in the minors," she added. "We needed something. There was a junior team a few years back but it fell apart."
Lisa Scott said close to 70 players participated in Quesnel minor lacrosse last season. With the addition of a senior team, she expects that number to climb.
As far as being able to run with the other teams in the PGSLA, Lisa Scott said Quesnel does have its share of talented players.
"We're anticipating to be fairly competitive," she said. "Mackenzie did an excellent job last year and we're hoping for the best.
"We've had an abundance of people interested [in playing] so my only concern is we're going to end up with too many that want to play."
The Quesnel team will play eight home games, six of them on Thursday nights and the other two on the last Saturday and Sunday of the regular season. All home games will be held at Quesnel Twin Arenas, which housed the Quesnel Millionaires junior A hockey team until it relocated to Chilliwack in May. Lisa Scott can see the sting of the Mills' departure being softened a little by the birth of a new team on the Quesnel sports landscape.
"We have the Kangaroos [senior hockey team] but to have these [lacrosse] home games and be able to support our local kids and parents that are going to make up this team is great," she said. "Everyone wants to watch hometown players. Even with having out-of-town teams come here in the past for fundraising games, we had no problem selling tickets and having fans in the stands. And we've had kids in the past that have been traveling up to Prince George to play on the senior teams and now we can have them play for their home team."
Quesnel's first home game is April 26 against the Bandits.
