Orillia’s Braydon Hickey is living out his dream, playing NCAA field lacrosse south of the border.
Hickey earned a scholarship to play for Mount Olive University’s field lacrosse team in North Carolina.
In Hickey’s freshman year with the Division II school, he recorded five goals and added four assists in nine games.
As he prepares for his sophomore season with the Trojans this spring, Hickey took some time to reflect on where this journey started.
“I was looking to go to a DII or DIII school in the beginning,” said Hickey. “I had a friend who visited the school and he didn’t like it, but he told me that it would fit my style more, and the coaches would like me so I reached out to the school and told them I was looking to play and it took off from there.
“I went down for a visit and it was a good fit,” Hickey recalled of his trip to North Carolina.
Hickey is one of 40 players, who come from all over North America - including eight fellow Canadians - to play for Mount Olive.
He says he’s always had an interest in playing sports in the U.S.
“I always found the NCAA appealing. I thought it would be cool to be able to say I played in that league,” said Hickey. “I also thought it would be a different experience to go to school in the States. Things are so different, and I get to learn about a different culture and experience living in a different area."
When it comes to sports, Hickey’s first love wasn’t lacrosse. His passion for the game didn’t surface until his teen years.
“Being Canadian, I always thought that my thing was going to be hockey, but once I hit about 14 I had a break-out year in lacrosse and fell in love with the game,” said the 21-year-old. “And I realized that maybe I could take this somewhere if I wanted to put the work in.”
The former Orillia Secondary School student who now studies Kinesiology at Mount Olive, says that his time playing junior lacrosse for his hometown Orillia Kings helped mould him into the kind of player who could earn an opportunity to play at the NCAA level.
“I always had great coaches growing up here in Orillia and there is a lot of great lacrosse history here. It’s a major sport in our area,” said Hickey.
Hickey credits a lot of his success to having coaches with extensive lacrosse backgrounds during his time playing in Orillia.
“In my first-year playing junior, I had Marty Groves (as coach), who was on the team who won the Founder's Cup (in the mid 1990s), and then I had Rob Blasdell who played in the National Lacrosse League (NLL) and knows his way around lacrosse and I had Jim Meredith who is in the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame, so learning from those guys and taking everything I could from them really helped me get to the next level,” Hickey said.
Hickey, back home in Orillia for the holidays, admits it can be challenging living a 14 hour-drive away from home.
“It’s tough at times. I miss seeing my family every day especially because I’m so used to having them at all my games growing up,” said Hickey. “But it’s also good because even though I left one family, I joined another in 40 brothers at Mount Olive and the coaches are kind of like your dad, always looking out for you.”
Hickey also returns home during the summer months and he still plays lacrosse locally. Last summer, Hickey played most of the season for the Junior B Orillia Kings before being traded to the West Durham Ironheads for that team's playoff run.
“It might be the most fun I ever had playing lacrosse with those boys from West Durham,” he said.
Hickey and the Ironheads ended up making it to the second round of the playoffs where they would lose to two of Hickey’s life-long friends and former Kings teammates, Michael Greco and Dallin Blunt, who had been traded to the Akwesasne Indians.
“It was fun playing against them and I really wanted to beat them,” he said. “There was chirping back and forth a little bit, but after the game, we were still good friends.
“I remember after we got put out I was a little emotional and Greco came over and gave me a big hug. We exchanged some good words,” Hickey recalls.
Hickey is no longer eligible to play junior lacrosse, due to his age, and plans on trying out for a Senior B team this summer.
“Hopefully I can make a team and, if not, I’ll keep working and try to make it the next year. The goal is to eventually play senior A out west in B.C. and eventually crack an NLL roster. That’s the end goal,” Hickey said.
