LACROSSE.

Bermudians have watched the sport played here for decades – especially back in the 1970s when college teams from the United States would travel to the island during the famed College Weeks.

Although the American players competed at fields like Southampton Rangers, for Bermudians it was a matter of just watching from the sidelines – more of a passing curiosity than anything else.

Not anymore.

Young Bermudians are now coming out and playing the sport and this past weekend initial tryouts were held for a Bermuda team which will be competing at the 2010 World Championships in Manchester, England.

Mike Totman, head of the Bermuda Lacrosse Association, said this week: "We are getting more and more young Bermudians coming out – and they seem to really like the sport. In fact during the tryouts over the weekend I would say that half the players who came were Bermudian.

"The World Champions are in July 2010 and this was our first weekend where we got all the guys in and started practicing together. And there are a lot of Bermudians. I would say that the mix is half Bermudian and half expats."

And Totman, who is from Boston, said that the more Bermudians they can get playing the sport the better it will be. "We are always looking for more Bermudian players. This past summer our Under-19 team went to Vancouver for the Under-19 World Championships and there were 18 Bermudians in that team."

In fact Totman said the association will soon start up a lacrosse club at Saltus. "Bermudians are starting to play lacrosse in high schools and colleges in the US and Canada. But there are some who started the sport here. We now have some kids as young as nine, 10 and 11 who are learning to play – it is great to get them that young. While we will be starting lacrosse at Saltus this month we are also trying to get in touch with all the schools in Bermuda – private and public – to get something going among them. The earlier they start playing the better it will be."

Totman said that lacrosse has been played by Bermudians and expats for about six years now but he started seeing the numbers improve since 2006.

"That is when we first went to the World Championships – it has been growing ever since. We also had an event last June where a team from New York came down to play and we are trying to do that again this year in September. The Department of Tourism have also been supporting us with that."

This past weekend Totman managed to get Steve Colfer, the head lacrosse coach from Cabrini College in Radnor, Pennsylvania, to come down and volunteer his services and expertise by putting the players through their paces.

Of the 2010 Worlds, Totman said:"It gives the players something to work towards and aim for. Right now we do not have enough players in Bermuda to have a full league like they have in rugby, cricket and football. But we practice and in the summer we go to club tournaments and every four years there is the World Championships."

Totman also said that there is a big side benefit for young Bermudians to play lacrosse.

"Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the youth and college level in the US. And there are a lot of college scholarship opportunities for athletes – maybe not for the Division One schools but certainly for the Division Two and Three schools. University costs a lot of money and most of the kids here are going to universities anyway so if they had lacrosse (scholarships) it would make everything that much easier. There are no scholarships for cricket or rugby in the US and the scholarships that are given for soccer are tough to get because the competition is incredible. Lacrosse is a viable option for these kids here. They can take it up and go overseas and build their skills – we have kids that started playing with us and are now in private schools in the US playing lacrosse – and they are very good schools. Lacrosse is up and coming and the Bermuda kids are very athletic. The sport takes a lot of endurance and fitness and there is a lot of finesse involved. The have to learn to use the stick but it is all hand/eye coordination. The younger kids we have coming out – 10 and 11 years old – we find that in two of three weeks they pick it up very quickly. Right now we have about 10 kids coming out on the weekends and we are trying to get more to come out – the youngest is nine and the oldest is 12. It grows by word of mouth. One kids came out and the next week he brought his friends."

The regular Sunday sessions start at 10 a.m. at the Bermuda College. "Anyone who wants to try it should come by. We have spare equipment as well."

Totman and a couple of others from the association will soon go to the US Lacrosse Convention in Maryland. "We are going to start promoting the island as a place to come and play lacrosse. I spoke with a gentleman who is with the Lacrosse Federation and he used to be a coach at Rutgers University and I know he brought teams to Bermuda years ago during College Weeks. We would like to start that again. Cost is a bit of an issue but it would be great if we could get the teams here for camps."

Last month Totman was featured in the Enterprise newspaper in Boston.

He told writer Glen Farley: "It's (Bermuda) an incredible sports country. Everything you do revolves around sports. The Europeans get out of work and they go right to the pubs to watch the soccer games on TV that are being played over in England and Ireland. Or you get out and you go down to the beach and you play volleyball, there's softball, just about any sport you can imagine you can play here for fun or they have more serious leagues."

Totman – the assistant vice president of Citi Hedgefund Services – is serving in his second year as president of the Bermuda Lacrosse Association.

After Bermuda competed at the Under-19 World Championships in Vancouver, Totman said: "That sort of gave us momentum coming back here over the summer and now we've got an entire programme going on. We've got a women's team that started this year. We've got a youth programme that started a few months ago and I just signed a contract with one of the schools (middle school age) and we're going to start a school team. So it's grown pretty quickly in the past couple of years."

The 2010 World Championships will be the biggest to date with at least 31 nations competing.

The championships will be staged between July 10-24 at Manchester's Armitage Centre.

English Lacrosse Chief Executive Officer David Shuttleworth said: "Perhaps the most exciting development in lacrosse in recent years, alongside the growth of professional lacrosse in North America, has been the rapid expansion of the game internationally.

"For many years a World Championship meant Australia, Canada, England and the USA. In the late 1980s these countries were joined by the Iroquois Nationals and Japan.

"The first sign of the game spreading came in 1994 when England hosted the World Championship and alongside the main event ran a tournament for developing nations which included the Czech Republic, Germany, Scotland, Sweden and Wales. Since then every World Championship has seen an increase in the numbers of competing nations.

"In 2010 England will again be hosting the World Championship in Manchester; one of the world's greatest sporting cities.

"Over 30 nations are expected to compete and alongside the World Championship English Lacrosse will be running one of the largest Festivals of Lacrosse ever seen."