Award-winning Warriors rookie Adam Charalambides lives up to boxla billing

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Vancouver Warriors rookie Adam Charalambides lives up to his extensive advanced billing thus far.

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Charalambides, a No. 4 pick in the August National Lacrosse League entry draft, scored three times in a 13-5 win over Colorado Mammoth in a preseason fight Saturday at the Langley Events Center Fieldhouse.

Warriors general manager Dan Richardson says he has received multiple trade offers for Charalambides, 25, a Georgetown, Ontario native who starred in field lacrosse at Rutgers University. Richardson sees the lanky left-handed forward as one of the main building blocks for the advancing Warriors, and the Vancouver Canucks, who bought the lacrosse club in 2018, have given Charalambides a day job at the Warriors’ offices, where Your duties will include ticket sales.

As a result, Charalambides has moved to the Lower Mainland. With games on the weekends, NLL players typically live in cities other than those in which they play. Charalambides says it’s better that the training and preparation are based here, but it also gives the Warriors more access to him to help promote the team.

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Vancouver opens its NLL season on December 3 with a visit to the San Diego Seals . Their first home game is December 17, with the Saskatchewan Rush providing the opposition at Rogers Arena.

“He has the skills to get to the net and find ways to get the ball in,” Warriors coach Chris Gill said of the 6-foot-2, 195-pound Charalambides. “We have sometimes marveled at him during these first weeks.

“We are very excited to see where this is going.”

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Due to knee injuries, Charalambides has not played box lacrosse regularly since 2016, when he was a member of Ontario Junior A’s Orangeville Northmen powerhouse. They ended that season losing in the Minto Cup national club championship to the Coquitlam Adanacs in the main LEC building, which, funnily enough, is just across an alley from the Fieldhouse where the Warriors currently hold their training camp on weekends.

Also interestingly enough, the Adanac team featured defender Reid Bowering, Vancouver’s first-round pick, No. 2 overall in the 2020 NLL draft. He has also excelled in Warrior’s training camp so far. .

Charalambides received three seasons of medical red jerseys at Rutgers, a school in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He maintains that he is now completely healthy. He played all 13 Rutgers games in the field lacrosse season that concluded in May, scoring 44 goals along the way. He was fifth in the NCAA in goals per game.

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He was not involved in Vancouver’s 10-7 scrimmage loss to the Calgary Roughnecks on Sunday at the Fieldhouse, but Richardson says it wasn’t because of health concerns, but rather because the Warriors’ top ranks wanted to look at other players.

“I wanted to play. Trust me, ”Richardson said.

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The Warriors have not played a regular season contest since March 2020, when the NLL closed its season with five Vancouver games to go due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There was talk of playing a shortened season at a center last spring, but it never materialized.

Vancouver was 4-9 at the close and ranked 12th in the then 13-team cycle in scoring (9.00 goals per game), 10th in shooting (50 per game) and 11th in power play (39.6 percent). success rate).

They brought Charalambides to help. He joins a group of lefties in Vancouver led by Mitch Jones, who was second in the league in scoring when COVID-19 spoiled the process, as well as fellow veterans Riley Loewen and Logan Schuss.

With the right-handers, Vancouver added Kyle Killen (28 goals in 2019) through a trade with Colorado and Matthew Dinsdale (20 going in 2019 with Saskatchewan) through free agency to returnees Jordan McBride and Keegan Bal.

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The teams have active rosters of 21 players in the regular season, but they dress up two goalkeepers and 17 running backs for games. Usually they will go for six or seven forwards per game. Gill’s rollout will be worth watching early on, especially early on.

“We have added some proven scorers. We have a rookie who is very talented, ”Jones said with an obvious tip of the cap to Charalambides. “Once we hit our numbers, it will be fun to come together as a group and find the strengths of the guys.

“Are we better than before? If I am an explorer, I say there is no doubt. But you have to get together and show it. “

The Warriors have 27 players left in camp. Vancouver has an exhibition game on Nov. 26, when they travel to Calgary to face the Roughnecks, and Richardson says they will likely reduce their roster after that meeting.

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