HALIFAX—It’s a good time to be a sports fan in Halifax.

On top of high-level hockey and basketball teams like the Mooseheads and Hurricanes, the city will see the Wanderers soccer team launch this April, and the rumblings of a CFL franchise have never been louder.

For three young Ontario lacrosse players, moving to the East Coast as part of the new National Lacrosse League (NLL) expansion team in Halifax is a chance to explore a new city while getting the chance to grow their high-scoring, hard-hitting sport.

Kyle Jackson, Jake Withers, and Graeme Hossack will finish out this season with the Rochester Knighthawks before the indoor lacrosse team moves to Halifax to begin playing in December 2019 at the Scotiabank Centre.

Although lacrosse isn’t as widely played in Nova Scotia as parts of Ontario and western Canada, Jackson said once Haligonians watch their first professional game “they’re going to fall in love” immediately.

“It’s one of those sports that you just have to watch once, and you’ll never want to stop watching,” Jackson said in an interview Thursday with his teammates.

For those looking to get a sneak peek of the action, Jackson suggested Warrior Lacrosse’s Game Day Raw series, which follows NLL teams including the Knighthawks on the road, into dressing rooms, as well as the bench.

In the NLL finale of Game Day Raw, the Saskatchewan Rush and Rochester Knighthawks battle for the title.

“The fans would get a piece of some of the players that would be transitioning to Halifax,” Jackson said.

“Just having the players that we do, and the love for the game that we do … will draw people in no matter what.”

But have they tried donairs yet?

“No, everyone keeps saying that though,” Jackson laughed.

Given that lacrosse began as an Indigenous game in Canada and has been around for hundreds of years, Withers said he’s honoured to be able to play the sport — especially since the team’s owner is an Indigenous man, Curt Styres from Six Nations, Ont., and they have a lot of Indigenous players.

“They consider it a medicine game, so for us to be able to have the honour and the privilege to play that — it’s kind of ‘more than a game,’ they like to say, and that’s the way I look at it,” Withers said.

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The new Halifax squad doesn’t have an official name just yet, but president and CEO Stuart Brown said he’s already moved to the city with his family and there’s plans in the works to build a fan base with a “grassroots” approach.

However, over the summer, the registration for the domain name halifaxprivateers.com was updated, and earlier this year, the NLL itself trademarked the name Halifax Privateers.

Sitting with the three Rochester players, Brown said they’ll have players visiting all kinds of communities across Nova Scotia in the coming months, including First Nations, in order to spread the sport and “get sticks in kids hands” while teaching them the history and skills of the game.

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They’ll also be getting into gym classes around N.S. with the help of Lacrosse Nova Scotia, Brown said, to showcase how the game can help with positive conflict resolution and other great things.

“We’re different than other sports. People don’t necessarily know the game, so we need to take the right steps to educate people and then get them interested,” Brown said.

“Give us a shot.”

When asked whether Brown was worried about sports saturation in a smaller city like Halifax, he said he’s not concerned because the Wanderers will play an opposite summer season so “there’s a lot of synergies between their fans and ours,” and a potential CFL team wouldn’t cross into their season either.

“It’s exciting for Haligonians to have more entertainment options. Obviously there’s a little bit of competitiveness, but this town embraced us from Day 1 when we came here … we think it’s the right time,” Brown said.

For Jackson, he said what keeps him excited and dedicated about the sport is seeing it expand into communities people never would have expected, and Halifax is a prime example of that.

The NLL itself is rapidly growing. Brown said San Diego and Philadelphia are playing this year, and there’s an “aggressive” plan of four new teams over the next six years.

He added that many of the young guys coming up now will also be competing for a spot on Canada’s Olympic lacrosse team for the 2028 summer games in Los Angeles.

“These guys are the best in the world, and you should come out and watch them play,” Brown said.

Brown and the Rochester players were in Halifax this week to raise support for the expansion team, as well as hold a VIP event for the first 100 people in their membership group that reserved their season tickets online.

Ticket prices for the Halifax team haven’t been determined yet, but the team is selling season packages online at halifaxnll.com. The NLL commissioner has said tickets across the league are between $23 and $24 on average, which he called, “very reasonable, very fan-friendly, very accessible.” Tickets in Toronto and Calgary start above $30.

Brown said they will announce the Halifax team’s new logo and team name in January 2019.

There’ll be nine home games per regular season, which runs from December to April, along with pre-season games in the fall and potential playoff action in May.

The Halifax expansion became the league’s 12th franchise and the fifth in Canada.

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