Moving On Together: U.S., Canada Rivals Returned to Waterdogs Focused on Task

After the Waterdogs defeated the Chaos to win the 2022 Premier Lacrosse League championship, the team spent the rest of the evening in Philadelphia celebrating.

And then, not all that long after, the conversation turned to 2023.

The players already knew their championship window wouldn’t remain open for much longer. That game was already that last time Ryan Brown and Steven DeNapoli would be with the team before deciding to retire. Much of the remaining roster was filled with veterans.

They agreed to do whatever necessary to stay together, including sacrificing more lucrative deals in free agency to ensure the team was able to remain whole. It worked. Kieran McArdle and Dillon Ward re-signed, Jake Carraway was brought in and the only core players lost were Brown and DeNapoli.

“Once you win one of these things, it’s so addicting,” Waterdogs head coach Andy Copelan said. “You want to try and experience that again. I remember how selfless those guys were during the postgame.”

“The difference in demanding the highest salary if you’re a big-name player like [Michael] Sowers or Kieran, they know they could probably make more money if they went to a different team,” co-captain Liam Byrnes said, “but they understand this team has something special, and they were willing to sacrifice five, six, seven thousand dollars to keep the locker room together, to keep that culture and camaraderie going.”

To build that camaraderie, the Waterdogs, like other teams, spend a lot of time together on weekends. Team meals are a staple, but Ward also said it can be as simple as getting a case of beer and sitting in the hotel lobby together.

One thing that Ward believes helps pull the Waterdogs closer during these hangouts is the depth of conversation. Because there’s a heavy veteran presence, players are in similar stages of life. The conversations are less about catching up about their week and more about what is going on in their personal lives.

“Myself and Zach [Currier] got married last year,” Ward said. “Kieran McArdle had a kid a year ago around this time. You’re seeing guys who are getting engaged, moving in with their girlfriends and things like that, starting jobs and moving new places, so we have a lot of guys in the same phase of their lives, and they’re going through it together.”

In addition to deep conversations, the team also knows how to have fun. Copelan said when it came to crafting the roster, it was important to find personalities who were “engaging” and able to balance their lacrosse careers and not taking themselves too seriously.

The Waterdogs let loose during their Kangaroo Court sessions. After team lunch on Saturdays, the players meet and hold trial in a mock-court system, fining teammates — Byrnes said $2-$5 — for things like not wearing the right shirt to practice or showing up a few minutes late to the midweek Zoom.

Byrnes said most teams try to do something similar, but the Waterdogs take it to another level.

“I know I’m going to get fined for this, but I’ll still divulge these secrets,” Brynes said. “I am the judge. We have a jury made up of [Christian] Scarpello, Ethan Walker and Matt DeLuca. They oversee any challenges. If someone gets fined, and they don’t agree with it, you have a chance to challenge. If you lose that challenge, you pay double the amount of the original fine. That’s how the jury works. Ben Randall is the treasurer. … It’s supposed to be fun, but it also holds guys accountable.”

The Waterdogs needed all the chemistry building they could get in what turned out to be a very disjointed schedule. The 2023 World Lacrosse Men’s Championship took place the two weeks between the Columbus and Minneapolis PLL weekends, putting a halt to the PLL’s proceedings.

After two weeks of training camp and three PLL games, working together to try and defend their championships, players went their separate ways after a 19-18 comeback win over the Atlas on June 16.

The Waterdogs were well represented in San Diego. Scarpello and DeLuca played for England and Italy, respectively, while Ward, Currier and Ryland Rees played for Canada. The Waterdogs also had the most players selected to the U.S. team — Ryan Conrad, Connor Kelly, Byrnes, McArdle and Sowers.

“That was definitely very interesting. It was something that I’ve never had to go through before,” McArdle said. “Having it right in the middle of the season, mentally for myself, threw me through a little bit of a blender in terms of wanting to be focused on the Waterdogs but in the back of your mind, you’re going to be competing for a gold medal in a few weeks.”

For as much as the Waterdogs players referred to each other as best friends, the World Lacrossee Championship turned them into strangers. When the U.S. played Canada, despite McArdle being on attack while Ward was defending the goal, there were no pleasantries.

That demeanor extended off the field as well.

“Seeing the Team Canada guys in the dining hall, it was funny, you just buzz right by them,” Byrnes said. “They don’t even make eye contact.”

After the United States and Canada met twice during the tournament, including in the gold medal game, which the U.S. won 10-7, those seven players went from competing against each other in the biggest international lacrosse rivalry to being teammates once again.

On July 8, the Waterdogs outlasted the Chrome 10-7. McArdle referred to the transition from opponents to teammates like flipping a light switch, and Byrnes said players didn’t spend much time dwelling on what transpired in San Diego.

“The Team USA and Team Canada guys, that’s obviously a spirited and passionate rivalry, so they go from being in the same locker room and drinking a couple post-game beverages to all of a sudden going to San Diego and trying to rip each other’s heads off for a couple weeks,” Copelan said. “To reunite a week later and bury whatever it is that happened in Worlds and refocus on being at our best and continue this progress that the Waterdogs were trying to make, that maturity to compartmentalize all those things they had going on, they handled themselves really well.”

Even if not every Waterdog walked away from the World Lacrosse Championship with a gold medal, what U.S. and Canadian players did earn was more experience playing in a game with high stakes.

With the Waterdogs beating the Cannons in the 2023 PLL semifinals, the five USA players and three Canadian players will have played for three championships in just a little over a year. Add in Ward’s two appearances in the National Lacrosse League Finals with the Colorado Mammoth (winning in 2022) as well as the numerous championship games he, Currier, Eli Gobrecht and Mikie Schlosser played in during their days with the Denver Outlaws in Major League Lacrosse, and the Waterdogs have a roster full of championship pedigree.

“You know how to control your emotions. You know how to not let the big game take over,” McArdle said. “You’re just focusing on the task at hand. You understand there’s a game of runs, and in a big game, it’s going to be a battle until the final whistle.”

While it seems like players from the Waterdogs trip and fall into a championship game at this rate, the veterans are not foolish enough to take the incredible run they’ve been on for granted. When they take on the Archers for the 2023 PLL title, they will lean on those locker room relationships, playing for each other, knowing that just like Brown and DeNapoli in 2022, this championship game very well could be their last.

“This isn’t normal,” Ward said. “It’s very hard to get to a championship game. Making sure that guys enjoy it for what it is is important. You really don’t know when you’ll get another opportunity — if you’ll ever get another opportunity — to play for a championship again.”