Dan MacRae will always remember his National Lacrosse League debut. There's no way he could forget it, given what he went through to do it.
MacRae, a 22-year-old native of Oakville, Ontario, and rookie defenseman for the Calgary Roughnecks, attends Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York, where he is completing his degree in hotel and resort management. His new team opened the season with games at home Saturday against Buffalo and in the Seattle suburb of Everett against the Washington Stealth.
MacRae finished classes at 6 p.m. last Thursday, and a friend drove him halfway to Buffalo. His father picked him up there and, after creeping along Queen Elizabeth Way at 25 mph past St. Catharines in a snowstorm, they arrived in Oakville at 11 p.m. They were back on the road at 6 a.m. to get to Toronto's international airport for a rendezvous with other fly-in Roughnecks from the East in Daryl Veltman, Brandon Ivey, Mike Poulin, Derek Hopcroft and assistant coach Bob McMahon.
There was a stopover in Winnipeg, an arrival in Calgary at noon and, after hotel check-in, a bit of time to do some homework before his new equipment arrived.
''That was easily better than Christmas," MacRae said.
There was an 8:30 p.m. practice and a shootaround in the arena Saturday afternoon. MacRae didn't dress for the game against Buffalo, which his teammates won, 10-9.
To read the rest of the story, click here http://www.laxmagazine.com/nll/2010-11/news/0113101_coast_to_coast_with_roughnecks_rookie_macrae
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