On the 9th we got a message from Brian Whitmer who was out in Ireland helping out with the U21 World Lacrosse Championships. In short, an airline had lost all their defense sticks for one of the teams competing in the tournament and need poles within 48 hours in our to play their game. When we discovered it was in fact the Haudenosaunee team we had to move quick. Now UPS has always been pretty good with rush shipments in the past but on this occasion for whatever reason they were unable to collect the package later that afternoon. We then asked around on our social media begging for anyone local to us, who was going to be driving to Limerick to take the poles out to them, unfortunately everyone who was going had either left or had already arrived. There was only one option left, we get them their ourselves.
I booked my ferry for 2am the next morning, and headed home for a quick turn around to start driving to Limerick. Driving through the night I reached Holyhead ready to head to Dublin. If you have ever taken night ferry you will know that it is chaos almost like a scene out of The Walking Dead with people wandering the hallways aimlessly looking for somewhere to lie down and avoid the screaming children. After a few sleepless hours on the ferry we arrived in Dublin around 6am, ready for the two and a half hour drive to Limerick. The drive to Limerick was relatively uneventful I took my time not as the first game was not until 1pm against England.
I arrived around 9am at the University of Limerick campus and got to searching the campus trying to find the delivery address. I finally met up with the guys helping out the Haudenosaunee team and dropped them off. I then got sorted with tickets and somewhere to park the van. I was running on fumes by this point so had a nap in the van ready to watch the best U21s in the world play against each other.
The tournament opened with USA vs Canada which is an amazing way to start the day. The USA got an early lead being 3-0 up and Canada pulled it back to within one at the end of the first half. At this point I had to leave the game and head over to field 2 where the England team were taking on the Haudenosaunee. The game went how I thought it would go and Haudenosaunee came out on top. After the game I was introduce to the team and staff and the mad English guy who drove seven hours to make sure the team could play. I got to chat with the staff and some of the players who were all so grateful for delivering them. I was so nice to be able to help out a team in need while also getting to see the best U21 Lacrosse.