‘We still see ourselves as a championship team:’ Rush preparing for new season

After falling short of the National Lacrosse League playoffs last season, the Saskatchewan Rush will try to turn the page when it opens the 2022-23 season Saturday.

The Rush finished the 2021-22 campaign with an 8-10 record after a roller-coaster season that saw head coach Jeff McComb fired after a rocky 4-10 start.

Saskatchewan will be going against the Colorado Mammoth — the league’s defending champion — to open the new campaign, but the Rush will have the home crowd on its side.

“It’s always awesome playing in SaskTel (Centre) in front of our fans there,” said forward Robert Church. “We have an awesome time playing in front of them.”

But, Church said, he knows it’s going to be a challenge for the team, especially playing against one of the best goalies in the league, Dillon Ward.

“It’s going to be really hard for us to score goals on them, and we’re going to have to work extra hard to get to the front of the net,” Church said.

There could be plenty of offence on display, though; Church finished last season with 94 points, the highest on the Rush and the second-highest total of his career. His linemate, Mark Matthews, finished last season with 92 points, putting them both in the NLL’s top 10 for scoring.

“Mark would say the same thing – the individual success is kind of secondary,” Church said. “We’d trade anything to have a better season than last year and get some more wins on our record.”

The Rush will have a new face behind the bench on Saturday, but it will be a familiar face to the players.

Jimmy Quinlan was tapped as the new head coach during the off-season, after sharing the coaching duties with general manager and former head coach Derek Keenan for the final four games of last season.

“The biggest thing for me is just to simply be myself,” Quinlan said.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous or a little bit scared going into Saturday night, but at the same time I’m excited and I’m looking forward to the opportunity.”

He said he likes to keep constant communication with his players to make sure everybody knows where they stand, while staying true to himself.

“We’re familiar with what he brings as a head coach because of those four games (he coached last season), and he got those four wins under his belt,” Church said.

Even though the Rush missed out on the playoffs, the feeling in the locker room is that the team isn’t far off from returning to glory.

“We still see ourselves as a championship team,” Church said.

“Last year was a little bit of a blip in the plans, but we saw at the end of the year something we can really build on, with winning four straight and kind of rolling into this year with a little bit more confidence.”

Quinlan agreed, saying he knows his team is ready to compete.

“It’s really going to come down to just making sure we’re taking care of the finer points of the game and we’re good in the details,” he said.

“If we’re that team and hard to play against, I think we’re definitely a team that can contend for playoffs. And when you get there, who knows what happens.”

The action gets underway Saturday at 7:30 p.m.