BOWDEN, Alta. — It was a whirlwind season for local lacrosse player Marshall Bloomfield this year.
He ended up wearing jerseys for six different teams in 2022.
Bloomfield played most of the season with the Mountain View Junior B Mavericks and was named their team captain.
Then the Calgary Junior B Shamrocks traded for him for a chance at championship glory. He played the last four games of the season, playoffs, and provincials with the Shamrocks.
But a provincial championship ring eluded him.
The Shamrocks lost in the provincials to Edmonton Junior B Warriors.
However, Bloomfield’s season wasn’t over.
Not by a long shot.
The Warriors picked him for a chance to win the Founders Cup -- Canada’s junior B box lacrosse national championship tournament -- in Ontario.
“It’s always good to go for a Founders’ run. That was my plan,” Bloomfield said during an interview with the Albertan.
"That’s why I got traded to the Shamrocks, was to make a Founders’ run and couldn’t do it with the Shamrocks I guess, so lucked out and got to go with the Warriors.”
Once again, his team didn’t win a championship, but they did win bronze.
Bloomfield was asked if it felt weird to be playing with the Warriors after he’d been battling them so hard as a member of the Shamrocks.
“No, it wasn’t bad,” he said.
He didn’t know a lot of the players but just played his offence position.
Bloomfield was OK with winning bronze, but of course, the championship was the goal.
“I was going for a ring, I wanted a ring,” he said.
He admitted he had a pretty good tournament though, scoring six goals; five in the bronze game alone. He was named that game’s MVP.
In fact, Bloomfield was named MVP in two of the four games he played; the other was during the round robin portion of the tournament.
Bloomfield also played a game with the Okotoks Junior A Raiders.
In addition, he was called up to play a couple games with the Olds senior C Olds Stingers -- including one in June where they beat the Airdrie Senior C Mohawks 8-5.
That was the Mohawks’ first loss in Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League action in seven years, not including exhibition or tournament games.
“That was fun, getting to play with all the guys I used to play with back when I was a first-year,” he said. “(We) ended up pulling out a win.”
Bloomfield is now looking ahead to February or so when he hopes to be taken in the senior B draft. He already played in the finals with the Calgary Senior B Mountaineers.
He plans to either play senior B in Calgary next year or senior C in Olds.
It would have been nice to play for the National Lacrosse League’s Calgary Roughnecks, but Bloomfield believes a two-year break, due to COVID restrictions likely put an end to that dream.
Bloomfield said he enjoyed playing on all those teams and all those different levels of lacrosse but his most exciting experience was playing at the junior A level a couple of years ago.
“That was pretty high-up and very fast-paced lacrosse,” he said. “That was a lot of fun and then (we) ended up in the Minto Cup (the top junior lacrosse championship tournament) that year, so that was a lot of fun.”
In his first year of junior lacrosse, Bloomfield got a chance to play in the Founders Cup as a member of the Shamrocks.
“So I mean, I’ve played three years of junior and I’ve been to three national championships,” he said.
Bloomfield figures he’s been playing lacrosse since he was 10 or 11 years old.
At just 21 years of age, he plans to continue playing lacrosse for a long time to come.
Bloomfield has played other sports, like football and basketball, but lacrosse remains his favourite.
“I just grew a love for the game a couple of years ago and was pretty talented I thought, and I just stuck with it and had a lot of fun over the last lot of years,” he said.
When he’s not playing lacrosse, Bloomfield works as a plumber. Luckily for him, his boss lets him take the time he needs to play the game.
“He’s a big sports guy, so he’s good that way,” he said.
Bloomfield can see himself eventually standing behind the bench.
“In the future I’d like to coach, like a junior team or something,” he said.
