Slight and unassuming Boedy Shields, 16, could pass for the leading chess player at the Didsbury High School but he is an emerging box lacrosse star.
Shields has just been drafted to the Tier 1 Junior B Rockyview Silvertips in the Calgary Roughneck organization.
He also plays field lacrosse with the Mustang Star field lacrosse team. Junior-level box lacrosse is played in the spring and the Mustang field lacrosse program operates in the summer, so the two commitments mesh.
And field lacrosse is the game played in American colleges, so the Mustang program will give Shields the opportunity to play exhibition games and be scouted in the U.S.
The next steps he aspires to are playing for the Junior A Calgary Mountaineers, and winning a scholarship to an American university to play on a National Collegiate Athletic Association team and study sports management.
“Lacrosse at this level requires sacrifice,” Shields said in a Feb. 10 interview. “It can be tough to fit in school, practice and games.
The Silvertips practise and play in the Spray Lakes Sawmills Family Sports centre in Cochrane; the practices are at 10 p.m. and he drives home and does his school work afterward – so for at least one night during the week, he doesn't get much sleep. During the season there are as many as four games a week.
Lacrosse is a rough, tough game. The only rule is no hits to the head.
The sole protective equipment is a helmet and face guard, chest protector and arm-length pads.
Shields has been playing lacrosse since he was six, and has had two concussions (and no broken bones) but he uses his speed and agility to play equally against bigger, meaner young men.
“I'm not afraid to go where it is dirty and I know how to protect myself,” he said.
Shields said he wants always to be the hardest working player out there.
He says his Silvertip coach Joel Henry, who played professionally for the Calgary Roughnecks in the National Lacrosse League teaches that, “You don't play lacrosse because you want to be rich; you play because you love lacrosse.”
"You don't play lacrosse because you want to be rich. You play for the love of the game."Lacrosse player Boedy Shields quoting Rockyview Silvertip coach Joel Henry
