From Council Chambers to the Lacrosse Floor

Carlin Lutzer sits down with Brent Robinson — Former Town of Okotoks Councillor and now Executive Director of the Alberta Lacrosse Association — for a powerful conversation about leadership, community building, and the future of sport in Alberta. 

Brent shares how his passion for lacrosse evolved and what it really takes to grow amateur sport. 

Listen For:

3:25 How did Brent land the Executive Director role with the Alberta Lacrosse Association?

5:12 Who’s tougher—hockey players or lacrosse players?

9:03 How did lacrosse first get started in Okotoks?

12:30 Why is lacrosse coming back to the Olympics in 2028 as “sixes”?

18:07 When is lacrosse season—and how do families register in Okotoks? 

Guest: Brent Robinson, Executive Director, Alberta Lacrosse Association | 

Alberta Lacrosse Association | Instagram  | LinkedIn

Connect with Carlin

Email | Website | LinkedIn | Facebook 

Transcript

Announcer (00:00):

This is the Okotoks podcast, powered by Carlin Lutzer real Estate and held together by caffeine and good intentions.

Carlin Lutzer (00:20):

Before we jump in, can I ask a quick favor? If you're enjoying the Alker Talks podcast, hit that like button, leave a five star review and share this episode with one friend. That simple action helps keep the conversation going, helps more people discover local stories and keeps spotlighting the incredible people in our community. And if you've got a story to tell a guest idea, I'd love to chat with you. Reach out anytime Now. Today's episode is a great one. Brent Robinson joins us to talk about his transition from town council to executive director of the Alberta Lacrosse Association. We discuss the differences between lacrosse and hockey and who may be tougher. Is it hockey players or is it lacrosse players? We talked about how the sport is growing right here in Okotoks and what it means that lacrosse is heading back to the Olympics in 2028. If you've ever wondered what makes this sport so fast, so physical and so exciting, you're about to find out. Let's get into it. Well, Brent, thank you for joining me today.

Brent Robinson (01:30):

Happy to be here, Carlin.

Carlin Lutzer (01:31):

Yeah, and right out of the gate, just want to thank you for your service to this community. You're four years on council. Certainly, as we were just chatting, council members certainly go through a lot of highs and lows and different conversations that they have with the community, but we do thank you for your service and certainly we're sad to see that your name was not on one of the, well, I guess it would've been 18 then running for the council this year, last election period.

Brent Robinson (02:01):

Yeah, it would've been one more little melancholy about it myself at the time, whatever, but I'm really excited what I'm doing now and just working on that.

Carlin Lutzer (02:13):

Absolutely. Do you miss being on council? We're not going to talk much about being on council here right now, but do you miss it?

Brent Robinson (02:21):

Yeah, certain parts of it for sure. I miss feeling in the zone of what's going on. I miss, I'm just talking about council colleagues. We had a very positive relationship and this having the debate about what's right or what the best thing is in certain situations and coming up to solutions and then feeling like you're moving the needle in the town. I mean, probably wouldn't have moved it much in two, three months after training, but certainly as it went along, you definitely, by the time you're at the end of four years, felt like things were different in ways were positive for the community.

Carlin Lutzer (03:00):

Right. No, we do. Thank you for your service and I want to have you back on very quickly to talk about, maybe even just talk about some things that you thought being on council was going to be, and then the realities after the fact. I'd love to have that conversation with you sometime about that on a podcast

Brent Robinson (03:24):

For sure. Anytime.

Carlin Lutzer (03:25):

Yeah, for sure. But now you have accepted the role, and that was actually, if I'm not mistaken, in January, 2025, you've accepted the role of executive director of the Alberta Lacrosse Association. So congratulations on that job. And this is something that it seems like lacrosse has certainly been a part of your DNA for quite some time.

Brent Robinson (03:50):

Yeah. I first started playing lacrosse in 1994. I'd done a season in a higher level baseball team at that point as a 13-year-old. Played the whole summer, but had spent a good part of the summer standing in my snow pants in left field in the snow. And my dad kind of said to me, he says, do you think you might want to try playing lacrosse? It's not in the snow and you get to run. And so me and two of my friends, we'd both gone to Red Deer Lake School at the time, so Darcy Johnson and Ryan Martin, the three of us signed up to play. At that time, there was no lacrosse in Okotoks, so we decided had to play with the Saber Cats Lacrosse Club, which the way the districts worked, that was the closest one in southwest Calgary. And we were like, well, it was called Midget at the time, but what we'd now call U 17, we were 14 years old in grade nine. None of us had ever played before, and it's sort of once we decided in the spring, we got sticks, started throwing the ball around, hung out, and all three of us were on the team, and we played the Saver Cats that year. I remember a few parts of it, and I remember my coach, Ted and a few of the guys I played with. I don't remember if we were good or bad. I know I was bad, but that was how it all started. And then we got more into Okie-doke stuff after that.

Carlin Lutzer (05:12):

Right. Okay. So question for you that could tick some people off in a very controversial question. Who's tougher hockey players or lacrosse players?

Brent Robinson (05:25):

Oh, lacrosse players. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Listen, let's start with there's no gliding in lacrosse. You have to run the whole time or you don't move. Absolutely. And a hockey fight is, you can't balance and stuff, but you get into a lacrosse fight, it's literally bare knuckle boxes, absolutely. On a concrete floor or turf. And then there's no, the amount of times the hockey player gets the slash in the hand as you're like this in lacrosse, that's part of the game. That's just how it works.

Carlin Lutzer (06:03):

Absolutely. I certainly want to circle back as to some of the rules inside of lacrosse, but the one thing that I've noticed, and again, I'm no hockey expert. I've watched a lot of hockey. I've played high level beer league, not even high level, terrible beer league hockey, so I'm not much of a hockey player, but just watching my kid, my son go through the system, the kids that have played lacrosse and then also are playing hockey are a lot grittier. Feistier can take a hit, can take a slash, and they're usually the ones given it to the hockey players. And the ones that haven't played lacrosse, certainly, yes, you can certainly see they're certainly not as tough.

Brent Robinson (06:55):

Yeah, I think so comparing lacrosse to hockey, especially in the developmental, as you come up through lacrosse, engages in what we would call contact hockey at, even at the younger ages is contact, but non collision. But in lacrosse at younger ages, there's more earlier I would say more collision type activities at a younger age. And it's one thing to knock up puck off a guy's stick, and it's like you tap it and away it goes. But in lacrosse, it's in that guy's stick and it can't really come out, so you have to get on a guy. And so it requires a different level of sort of ability to badger a guy, do that, and then taking hits and learning how to take hits for sure. You learn that way earlier in lacrosse and how to accept contact and roll off contact and that type and stuff. So definitely I think it's players who play hockey and lacrosse pick up those skills at a much younger age.

Carlin Lutzer (07:49):

Absolutely. No, it's certainly evident. Okay. So what are some of the rules? I know that can you crosscheck guys is basically everything from the waist up. Okay. With your stick

Brent Robinson (08:03):

Pretty much. I mean, no checking in the back sometimes if there's a screen or something, but pretty much any type of crossing, slashing usually, as long as it's not intentionally directed to the player's hands to try and hurt them, you're pretty okay. And then below the shoulders you can't hit anything in the head is all illegal, but pretty much below the shoulders, above the waist. It's pretty legal

Carlin Lutzer (08:30):

For sure.

Brent Robinson (08:30):

And then there's a bit of change around when the players got the ball in their stick or whether they don't have the ball in their stick. So there's some contact even louder on a player without the balls when his team has the ball especially. And so getting around that, I mean, I think it's a super tough sport to officiate to referee because a lot of it is not so much like an absolute motion is illegal, but that was hard or that was too far or you ran too far, that type of thing. So it's a lot about in the degrees of contact or degrees of violence that you engaged in.

Carlin Lutzer (09:03):

Right, for sure. Okay. So you said in 1994 there was no lacrosse in Okotoks and area. What brought Okotoks into what and who helped bring OK to lacrosse into Okotoks?

Brent Robinson (09:18):

Yeah, so in 1995, so this is the next summer after that that I played with the SaberCats. My dad was trying to get some more other kids involved in lacrosse. So I've got three younger brothers and a younger sister, and so he was trying to get particularly my two younger brothers to get into it with some of their friends and stuff like that. So we were throwing the lacrosse ball around and this is how I remember it. So remember I'm 15 at the time, and I might not have this story exactly a hundred percent, but we're throwing the ball around and a truck drives by and stops and backs up and a guy gets out and walks across the field and says, do you guys play lacrosse here? And we're like, well, we're starting up a team or whatever. He's like, yep, we're going to start a club.

(10:06):

And that was Brad Banister really. So Brad and my dad started Okeydoke lacrosse basically in 1995. We started with some, basically we just put together exhibition teams. We didn't have enough players in the right age groups and stuff, so we kind of pulled some kids up, pulled some kids down, pulled some hockey players in, played some exhibition games, and then I think we went and played one year just as an exhibition team in the candidate tournament. So there's been a tournament on candidate in Calgary for 40 years or something. I can't remember the first year it started, but it was going back then. It's been the biggest lacrosse tournament, certainly Western Canada, I think for sure, in Alberta since then. So we played in those, and then I think in 1997, they first entered the Calgary District Lacrosse Association as an official association, the Okotoks Mustangs, and they got in and started it up and it was, yeah, Brad and my dad and two or three teams and they kids who never played lacrosse for almost every team, but they were teaching 'em. And I mean, that's most kids when they have never played before, but by the time two, three years went by, they get better at it and it's just grown from there.

Carlin Lutzer (11:16):

Absolutely. And for some listeners might be listening and they might be envisioning lacrosse being played out in basically a soccer field, but the lacrosse we're talking about is predominantly being played in hockey rinks, right?

Brent Robinson (11:33):

Yeah. So the biggest discipline in Alberta, about 95% of the lacrosse players in Alberta play what's called box lacrosse, which is played inside dried out hockey arena, either dry pad or with some turf foot down. Sometimes there's some places like in the lower mainland where they actually put a wood floor down over top of the concrete and stuff like that. The floor new Westminster's famous as a Greenwood floor. And so yeah, that's predominantly the style of lacrosse played in Alberta. There is field lacrosse, which is played outside on a soccer field, a lacrosse pitch, and that is very similar, but has certain differences in terms of there's more players, the nets are bigger, there's different rules about where the players can go across the line in terms of offsides and that type of stuff. So it's a little different style across. That's what you'd see if you watch NCAA college across, that's what you'd see.

(12:30):

And then there's a new discipline. So lacrosse is going to be in the Olympics in 2028, and in order to get into the Olympics, they had to essentially adjust the disciplines because the IOC wouldn't permit lacrosse to bring the number of players you need to bring full field lacrosse teams in. And then box across wasn't really an option because there's not enough sort of dry hockey arenas and everything to fit all the teams in. Plus it's a smaller discipline Internationally it's huge in Canada, it's definitely the biggest in Canada by far. But internationally it's a lot smaller because places like Israel and Uganda and stuff, there's not just a lot of dry hockey arenas sitting down and unused in the summers over there. So they've come up with a new discipline, it's called sixes, and so it's five runners and a goalie on each team on a smaller field outdoors with the bigger nets. But the play style, the way it works is much more similar to box in terms of the way the shifting works and the players have to play both ends of the floor or the field in that case. And so that will be the style of lacrosse played at the Olympics in 2028.

Carlin Lutzer (13:34):

Right. Well, if they can get break dancing in the Olympics, one would think lacrosse should be shoe and to make,

Brent Robinson (13:42):

Well, it it's a return to the Olympics, of course. So lacrosse wasn't the Olympics in the early 20th century, but it hasn't been in, I'll get the day wrong, but it's the 1920s I think that it kind of came out of the Olympics and then was out of the Olympics until this 2028. It'll be back for sure. We're all very excited. I think it's going to be a real boon for the

Carlin Lutzer (14:03):

Game

Brent Robinson (14:04):

Once that

Carlin Lutzer (14:05):

Starts in Oke an area. Do you guys have some kind of afternoon or some kind of event where kids could just come out and try lacrosse just to see what it's like? Is that something you guys do or no?

Brent Robinson (14:19):

Yep, every year. So there's one coming up February 8th, four o'clock at the field house. If you've got kids who want to come out, just get in touch with the ook. So they're now called the ook Raiders Lacrosse Association, and they're holding, it's open to anyone who wants to just come try it and you can try it out. And it's just there. In general, in our experience, the best way to teach players about the game or get them interested in the game or expose the game is just to try it. Once you get the hang of having a lacrosse ball in your stick and how it works, you will fall in love with playing the game. It's just that much fun to be able to do it. The different, the skills and the sort of things you can do with a lacrosse ball in your stick are just so fun and so different than anything else you can do in any other sport that just people fall in love with

Carlin Lutzer (15:11):

It,

Brent Robinson (15:12):

But you just got to get that exposure.

Carlin Lutzer (15:13):

For sure. And what always amazes me is the precision, right? You get those goalies, the nets are smaller than hockey nets. The goalies equipment is massive, and yet they're so precise in the way that they can shoot the ball is

Brent Robinson (15:33):

With a guy draped offs, 10 a stick pushing you down. Absolutely. Yeah. They're remarkable athletes with remarkable skill. I am not that good at lacrosse. I never played that much. I never got into junior lacrosse and stuff like that. After I kind of finished up my minor lacrosse, I didn't even know junior lacrosse existed, frankly, at the time. This was like 19 96, 19 97, but didn't even know it was a thing. I know there were a couple of junior teams in Calgary, but there's no internet, there's no Instagram reels of guy's doing crease dives and spin arounds and stuff. So we had no idea what was going on. And so I just stopped playing, didn't even know there was an option to keep playing. And then I started coaching.

Carlin Lutzer (16:21):

How long did you coach for? Are you still coaching

Brent Robinson (16:25):

Still coach? Yeah. So in 2004, I was asked to help coach my sister's team. So my sister's somewhat younger than me, so she was still playing. I had just finished law school and come back to, I was living in South Calgary at the time, but she was playing in Okotoks, and they're like, we need some coaches for this team. And I said, I'm happy to help coach. So I assistant coach one year Tim Seg and then went out. They were like, well, we head coached the U 13 girls team. I'm like, sure. So I started coaching U 13 girls that year 2005. And then the next year in 2006, I was still living in South Calgary and the Axman team, they got rid Southeast Calgary and they were looking for some coaches, and I volunteered and I coached a U 17 B team, made it to provincials that year I lost to provincials, but it was a good fun year with those kids. And then I think after that I took a couple years off, so that was one of my second kid was born in 2006, my one who still plays with us. Is that right? Yeah.

(17:31):

And then I started coaching all my kids teams from, I think my daughter would've started playing 2009. So I've been coaching pretty much every year since 2009, I think.

Carlin Lutzer (17:43):

Wow. Yeah. Well, that's awesome. Obviously you love the sport. Now if someone's wanting to sign up, we have February 8th where they can come to the field house and they can try it. Now, chances are people might be listening to this and it's past that date, but when are your registrations for this up and coming lacrosse season?

Brent Robinson (18:07):

So the box lacrosse season runs from give or take, the middle of April to the end of June. Provincials are usually second week in July. So that's sort of the max end of the season for most minor box lacrosse. So it's signup season right now. So if you're in overdose or in playing, go tooke's lacrosse.com and registrations are open right now for everything from U seven, so four or five, six year olds all the way up to U 17. So 15, 16 year olds, if you've never played before, you can sign up. They'll teach you at anyone who signs up, we'll get on a team.

Carlin Lutzer (18:43):

Right on.

Brent Robinson (18:45):

So there's no cuts. I mean, there is a B and C teams available, but there's no cuts. So if you're in anywhere in Alberta, basically right now there's registration available, there's lacrosse everywhere from Grand Prairie, Fort McMurray, Lloydminster, cold Lake, all the way down to Medicine Hat Brooks Tabor, Lethbridge, and into, we're working on just sorting out the Crows Nests Pass area, but there's an association and a group that runs out of the Crows Nests pass area too. So there's somewhere for you to play anywhere in Alberta if you go find out. And lots of them are running all their triad sessions right now.

Carlin Lutzer (19:25):

Yeah, that's awesome. No, and what a great sport. And like you say, the no ability to glide. So if you want to get some cardio in, what a great way to get some cardio, but have some fun doing it and maybe get beat up while you're playing too.

Brent Robinson (19:42):

Well, listen, if you're an older fellow like me or an older gal and you're still interested, we still play Okotoks Masters plays Wednesday nights, nine o'clock at the Field House, nine 15, and anyone's welcome. We still have guys who just learned to play in the last well played this season I've never played before in the last couple of years. They come out, what usually happens is their kids pick up the game from, they learn it at school or whatever, they pick it up and then they see their kids play and they come out and play with us old guys. So yeah, if you're an older person you're interested in playing, just come on out. Maybe give us a shout to make sure you got a helmet and a stick and a pair of gloves for sure. But that's all you need. We don't play full contact at Masters. Its, we're a little too old

Carlin Lutzer (20:27):

For that. Yeah. So no fights break out is what you're

Brent Robinson (20:29):

Saying?

Carlin Lutzer (20:31):

No fights. That's

Brent Robinson (20:32):

Typically, I've never say never. We're still lacrosse players

Carlin Lutzer (20:35):

Garland. No, that's awesome. No, we do get to go to the odd roughnecks game, and we always leave just kind of pumped up, like them playing the music while the game's going on, that lacrosse community knows how to pump up the crowd. The crowd at those roughnecks games are right in there. And if you've never been able to experience a Roughnecks game, I would highly encourage to go and watch a lot of fun and no doubt to get the buzz and get the excitement for lacrosse. It is a fantastic sport.

Brent Robinson (21:17):

Yeah. I've had rough Next season tickets since 2005. The first rough next game I went to is I finished law school in 2004, moved back to Calgary, and this was spring of 2004, which I don't know. Did you live in southern Alberta, Calgary 2004.

Carlin Lutzer (21:35):

I was in the area, yes. Yeah,

Brent Robinson (21:37):

Yeah. So you remember what 2004 was?

Carlin Lutzer (21:40):

Oh yeah. Isn't that when the flames had their run?

Brent Robinson (21:43):

The Red Mile was on, and so it was like, this is the same time as the Red Miles one. The roughnecks are going on a run to the playoffs, and it's like May. So this is the third round of the Flames playoff run. The roughnecks are in the championship game, and we came back, they sold out the Saddledome right to the rafters. We all had BoomStick and the team had only been, I want to say 2002 was a rough next first year, maybe 2001. So they were only two or three years old. And they go to the championship, I'm pretty sure they played Buffalo and I mean it was just electric, electric and this whole thing, and it was like the funnest thing. And I was like, this is the best sporting event ever. And they only had, back then, I think it was only eight home games. Now they're up to nine home games. So instead of having to have 41 dates, you got to go down to the saddle limit. It's only nine games. And I haven't been to every game. Sometimes there's scheduling conflict and stuff like that, but we go almost all the time. It's the most fun. The roughneck, I won three championships, all of them in the Zel Dom. I've been in the building for all of 'em.

(22:47):

The 2009 one is still, there's a play at the end of the second half. I know I'll have to look it up or find the clip, but I guess it's not, it's right at the end of the first half. Pardon me. And there's a timeout with four seconds left in the roughnecks, take the ball. And Caleb Toth is one of the best players who played for the roughnecks. He scored a game winning goal for Toronto before he came to Calgary, before the team was there. And he's a Calgary warm player, and he's by where the penalty boxes are close to the score clock, and they call the timeout and there's like two, three seconds left, and he just takes about four steps and shoots it. And he rips it and he scores. No way. And it's still, to this day, one of the most incredible things I've seen, like everybody in the whole building knows it's coming. He's got one play and he throws it right past the goalie, and they ended up winning that game. New York Titans, that one I remember. And then in 2019 was the overtime game. Reto scored the overtime winner. And like I said, I've been in side for all of 'em, and it's just the best experience. So fun, good community. I've been sitting next to the same people in our scene tickets, seats for the last probably 10 years now. And it's like, yeah, every goal is high five.

Carlin Lutzer (23:57):

Yeah. Well, it is funny because like you say, it is good community because when you go there for the first time and you haven't been there for a while, you're like, okay, this is really the first five minutes. You're like, okay, these people are weird in the crowd. But then all of a sudden, by the end of the game, you're doing the bang, bang, bang, bang. You're doing all the actions, you're right into the game. And it is a great atmosphere. Now, I didn't know there was only nine home games.

Brent Robinson (24:26):

They play an 18 game season. So the NLL is not full-time players. Lots of 'em travel in for games. It's only their part-time gig. Oh,

Carlin Lutzer (24:35):

Really?

Brent Robinson (24:35):

So lots of 'em don't even live in Calgary. They live in wherever they're from. Lots of lower mainland guys from Ontario guys. And so yeah, they fly in for weekend,

Carlin Lutzer (24:43):

They

Brent Robinson (24:44):

Play, they have their

Carlin Lutzer (24:44):

Jobs, I guess, and they fly in and they play 18 regular season games. That's fascinating. I didn't know that. Well, my friend, I appreciate your time today. I appreciate your passion for lacrosse. Definitely comes through, that's for sure. And no, it's a great thing. I will leave this podcast with my outro. We'll probably cut this part out, but my outro will have all the information that people need to contact the okotoks lacrosse.com, right? Yeah. They can get all the information there. But yeah, and get in touch, no doubt. Great exercise. I think I feel like I'm too old. I'm too old to play lacrosse, but you never know, right?

Brent Robinson (25:34):

Yeah. There's guys older than you still playing. I'm sure you, I assure you on our vassar's ten four times, guys will live with me for sure.

Carlin Lutzer (25:41):

I use Oil of Olay, so you have no idea how old I'm,

(25:47):

I'm glad you remember that commercial that would've left me hanging. So right on my friend. You have a great day. Thank you. What a great conversation with Brent. From Council Chambers to coaching benches from box lacrosse in Alberta and the excitement of lacrosse heading back to the Olympics in 2028, you can feel the passion he has for growing the game and building community through you sports. If this episode gave you a new appreciation for lacrosse, share it with someone who loves hockey, sports or community stories, and don't forget to like and leave that five star review. It truly helps more than if you or someone know of a story we're sharing, please reach out. I'm always looking to highlight the people who make Okotoks, the Foothills, and Alberta such a special place to live. Thanks for listening, and we will see you on the next episode of the Okotoks podcast.

Announcer (26:51):

That's all from the Okotoks podcast, where we keep it grounded just like the big rock. Thanks to Carlin Lutzer real estate for the support.