New captain, best defender Brett Mydske looking to help the Vancouver Warriors take the right direction

Article content

A Burnaby firefighter during the day will once again be the Vancouver Warriors’ main defender and team captain in the number 2 jersey.

Article content

This time it won’t be Matt Beers.

Brett Mydske, who is at work with Beers in Burnaby, will take on the lead role for Beers on the court and their captain’s ‘C’ and uniform number with the Warriors this year, beginning with the season opener on Friday. on the road against San Diego. Seals

NLL players have regular jobs. The league has long been burdened with firefighters from various jurisdictions.

The 31-year-old Beers, who spent 10 seasons with the Warriors, went free agent to Saskatchewan Rush this summer. Mydske, 32, signed with Vancouver as a free agent prior to the 2019-20 season after 10 years with the Rush, but was unable to play that season because he had just been hired at Burnaby and was still on probation there.

That NLL season was closed early due to COVID-19. There was talk of playing a shortened schedule in a bubble last spring, but that never materialized.

“When you’re on probation at work, you get assigned to older guys as mentors, and Matt was one of mine. It was great to have the opportunity to learn from him, ”said Mydske, who now has different shifts than Beers at his regular jobs.

“I was excited to have the opportunity to play him with the Warriors. He was one of the guys who recruited me to come to Vancouver. It’s a shame staying didn’t work for him. “

Article content

Beers is one of several longtime Warriors who parted ways with the team since they last played a game on March 7, 2020. Vancouver has nine newcomers on its active 21-man roster to start this season, looking to trade one. franchise that has gone 9-22 since the Vancouver Canucks bought it in July 2018, and has played only one playoff game in the past seven seasons.

Mydske was part of a star-studded defense with Saskatchewan, and that group has been one of the main reasons the Rush have been one of the league’s biggest franchises for the past decade. In his 10 years with the Rush, Mydske played 27 postseason games. He has been part of three National League championship victories.

“I want the pressure. I want to build something here. I want to help build the same kind of culture that we’ve had with the Rush, ”explained Mydske, a married father of two from New Westminster. “And, with the feeling in our locker room during training camp, you can tell that something special is starting.

Article content

“With Rush, you’d be (marked) if you lost one game or heaven forbid two. Then it got to the point where you were winning by one or two and getting mad because it wasn’t four or five. “

He insists things are going in the right direction with the Warriors. Vancouver went six years without a first-round draft pick, thanks to former general manager Doug Locker trying to change the team’s path back into contention. Since the last time they played a game, they added two first-round players in defender Reid Bowering (No. 2 overall, 2020) and forward Adam Charalambides (No. 4 overall, 2021), and they are expected to be a part of the new core of the team right away.

“I think people are sleeping on us right now, and I like it, because I like being the underdog,” Mydske said. “We are going to surprise people. There has been a pretty big change and there is a good mix of veterans and rookies. It looks like those two first-round players are going to be superstars. “

Article content

Mydske admits that getting the ‘C’ for captain is “a bit of added pressure,” but was comfortable that the team’s players already knew him, both from his time in the National League and at the Western Lacrosse Association summer club. , where he has played. with the Langley Thunder and the New Westminster Salmonbellies.

“They know I’m not a ‘rah, rah’ boy. They know that I will try to set an example on and off the court, “he said.

Beers, who has a 6-foot-3 and 205-pound right-hander, used to have the toughest control task with the Warriors, having to mark the most talented player in the opposition. That duty will now undoubtedly fall on Mydske, a right-hander who reaches 6-foot-4 and weighs 215 pounds.

You didn’t automatically get those assignments with Rush. They feature Kyle Rubisch, who won the National League defender of the year four times and has been one of the trophy’s two runners-up each year three times, as well as the only winner Ryan Dilks and three-time runner-up. Chris Corbeil.

Mydske has won the WLA Gord Nicholson Award for Best Defensive Player four times.

The Warriors’ first home game is December 17, when Beers and the Rush arrive at Rogers Arena.

[email protected]

twitter: @SteveEwen