A bike ride up Coquitlam’s Blue Mountain Road changed Rick Mang’s life.
As a young member of the Coquitlam Adanacs who just returned from a crushing loss in the Mann Cup senior A championship to the Brooklin Redmen in 1988, he was unwinding on his 10-speed on a warm September afternoon.
A week earlier, in Whitby, Ont., he had to don a parka. That’s when Mang decided his taste of lacrosse on the West Coast would become a full meal deal and he sublet his Ontario apartment.
On Saturday, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame inducted Mang, the most successful goalie in the Western Lacrosse Association, among its 2017 class.
Mang played 12 seasons in the WLA, the first three with the Adanacs and the balance with the New Westminster Salmonbellies (from 1990 to 1997).
He won the Mann Cup with the ’Bellies in 1991, tasted the sting of defeat three other times and earned a second sip from the golden trophy with Brampton in 1998.
In 1994, Mang was presented the W.C. Ellison Trophy as the WLA playoff MVP. His 81.35 career save percentage still ranks him the best amongst all WLA goalies who’ve played more than 100 games.
The memories are many, but the best times centre around the bling – that inaugural championship especially.
“My first Mann Cup in New West,” Mang said on reflecting on his career highlight. “Eric Cowieson, Geordie Dean, Ben Hieltjes, Davey Durante, Donny McNeill, Mike Kettles – just a room full of ‘you know we’re going to win’ (guys). After it was said and done – and it was a battle, a war – it was life-changing. I expected to win it every year in New West, because we were always in it then.”
Now, to join the ranks of lacrosse’s greats brings it full circle.
Mang said he was taken aback when he learned of the honour this past summer.
“I never saw it coming,” he said.
Mang described himself as “just a cocky, arrogant rookie from back east” when he landed with the
Adanacs after leading his Peterborough Lansdown Maulers to the Minto Cup Junior A lacrosse championship in 1986 over the Esquimalt Legion – a team that featured legendary hall-of-famers Gary and Paul Gait. But it was in New Westminster and at Queen’s Park Arena where his career really blossomed.
“It took me playing in New West to shut me up,” said Mang. “There were a lot of men on that team, family men who just took care of business.”
Five of those men – Andy Ogilvie, Todd Lorenz, Cowieson, Dean and Hieltjes – preceded Mang into the Hall, which is located in New Westminster’s Anvil Centre.
“Everybody wanted to go play in New West,” said Mang. “They knew it meant you might win a Mann Cup.”
Mang said his move west didn’t come without some adjustments. The game in Ontario was faster, players had softer hands to make and distribute passes, while western lacrosse relied more on tactics, positioning and aggression.
He also had the good fortune to play in two of the most incendiary lacrosse hotbeds in the country, Peterborough and New West, where the game mattered a lot to local fans and the media.
That’s not the case anymore as the game competes with higher-profile sports that promise wealth and fame to the very few kids good enough to make it to the top.
“Back in the day, lacrosse was the only game in town,” said Mang. “There’s so much other stuff to do nowadays.”
Still, Mang’s passion for lacrosse hasn’t diminished. He coached a Senior C team this past summer, as well as his daughter’s junior team in Port Coquitlam. And he’s proudly grooming his four-year-old grandson, Jacob, to carry the family name among the next generation of players.
“It’s always been about lacrosse,” said Mang.
The induction ceremony also saw him enter the hall as part of the Peterborough Maulers’ three-year dynasty, which included two undefeated seasons.
Joining Mang in the hall were players Ken Colley, Pay Coyle, and Clinton Magee, and veteran Don Craggs
