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Sullivans' passion for lacrosse visible on, off field

It takes more than just playing lacrosse to make a living in the sport.
Rush Mammoth
Josh Sullivan

It takes more than just playing lacrosse to make a living in the sport.

The pros don’t get multi-million dollar contracts. They have a National Lacrosse League season filled with weekend games and players with regular jobs.

Even trying to carve out a business catering to lacrosse players takes a special kind of passion.

That passion is found in Red Deer’s Sullivan family.

Josh, 25, now a member of the Colorado Mammoth in the NLL, took a long winding road to get to the pros. His older sister Janelle runs Red Deer’s only lacrosse store, Slash Lacrosse.

“She works all day and then she tries to run her store,” said Josh. “She’s almost got more passion for the sport, it seems like, than I do. Running a business, she’s pretty amazing.”

On top of her store, Janelle runs an ATCO gas construction crew, teaches dance and plays lacrosse with the Red Deer Senior Ladies Choice Mechanical Rage.

“Lacrosse has been such a big part of my life,” said Janelle. “I was fortunate, Red Deer has a really good lacrosse association and they contributed to my childhood quite a lot. I try to contribute back with the store.

Then there’s Janessa.

Janessa isn’t playing this season after tearing her lateral collateral ligament in her knee twice, once at the end of the season two years ago and then again at the start of last season.

“I can’t really risk another injury,” Janessa said, but she’s not ruling out playing in the future.

But she works at her sister’s lacrosse store and is coaching two lacrosse teams, midget girls and the Choice Mechanical Rage, this season.

“It’s just such a fast pace game,” said Janessa. “It’s so much fun to play. There’s not a whole lot of places you can go out and hit somebody and it’s legal.”

During the NLL season, Josh lives in Denver and coaches at a Denver area private school. While back in Red Deer, he is a power engineer at the Joffre Petrochemical plant east of the city.

Josh started playing in middle school as a way to break up the schedule of constant hockey when he was 11.

“A group of friends he played hockey with heard about lacrosse and they figured they’d give it a try in the summer,” said Josh.

“We got sick of playing hockey year-round and we wanted to try something else.”

But it didn’t become a passion right away for Josh, it started out as a fun activity. Once he realized his potential of where he could take his game, his passion grew.

“The biggest jump for me was when I went from Junior B Tier 1 in Red Deer to Junior A in St. Albert for the Miners,” said Josh. “It opened my eyes with where I could go.”

Drafted by the Senior B Miners, he played a couple of seasons there when he got a tryout for the Calgary Roughnecks in 2015.

“It was really intense,” said Josh. “You have to show up in shape and ready to go.”

He was released by the Roughnecks, but told he needed more experience at a higher level. Alberta doesn’t have Senior A lacrosse, so he went to Coquitlam to play for the Adanacs in the Western Lacrosse Association. The WLA plays in the summer, during the NLL’s off-season.

Pat Coyle, coach of the junior Adanacs, approached Josh about going to the Mammoth’s training camp ahead of the 2016 season. And he made the team.

“The jump from Senior B in Alberta to Senior A is pretty substantial,” said Josh. “It’s a faster game and you’re playing against teams with NLL players on their roster. It prepared me pretty well for the NLL.”

He’s only played in five games this season, scoring one goal, but he’s working on living out a dream. One of those games he started was in Calgary against the Roughnecks.

Janessa said a contingent of about 200 to 250 of Josh’s friends and family made the trek down to watch him play.

“The dream would be to be a regular starter,” said Josh. “I’m trying to work away at that, watching game film and working in the gym.”

In Colorado he plays with one of the game’s legendary players, John Grant Jr. Josh concedes to having a poster of Grant Jr. on his wall for years. He said playing with Grant Jr. was “pretty unreal.”

When the season ends, Josh plans to come back to Red Deer and back to Joffre. He has been contacted by Coquitlam about the summer lacrosse season and wants to get back out there to improve his game.

“I don’t want to lose a step, I want to play at the highest level I can,” said Josh.

He’s working on his transition game to bring more to his team.

Janelle played the sport for so long, but was frustrated by the constant trips to Calgary or Edmonton for equipment.

“I was at a point where I was either going to buy a house or something else,” said Janelle. “I decided to do something else, and that was open the store.

“Lacrosse has grown so much since I started playing. We have a high calibre of lacrosse in Central Alberta now.”

Growing up, Josh, Janelle and all played lacrosse.

“We’re all two years apart, it did get pretty competitive between the three of us,” said Josh. “Even if it was just guys versus girls.”

When they started playing in Red Deer, all three of them played on the boys team.

“It was a blast,” said Janessa. “In the summer, when we weren’t in the field we were out in front of the house playing lacrosse. It was fun to be together and have that bond.”

“Now that Janessa and I play together, I think we’re more of a team than actually competing against each other,” said Janelle. “We all kind of played together.

“Obviously Josh is the superstar.”

Janelle said she and Janessa are pretty proud of Josh and what he has accomplished in the sport.

mcrawford@www.reddeeradvocate.com