If all goes according to plan, the Iroquois Nationals will be playing in the FIL World Indoor Lacrosse Championship in the Czech Republic on May 21.

They have already announced their 31-man roster for the games. They have been slotted in Pool B with the United States, the Czech Republic and Ireland. Their first game is set for that first day against the Irish.

But Cody Jamieson won’t believe any of it until he steps off the plane in Prague for the tournament.

‘Anything can happen,’ said the former Syracuse standout and current attack for the Rochester Knighthawks of the National Lacrosse League. ‘And I wouldn’t be surprised if the day before we’re supposed to leave, something came up and we started going through this all again.’

‘Again’ refers to just one summer ago, when a passport controversy kept the Iroquois from traveling to England for the Federation of International Lacrosse World Lacrosse Championship. That tournament was completed without the Nationals’ participation, even though its members are the inventors of the sport.

The Czech Republic has already announced that they will accept the Iroquois’ Haudenosaunee passports as long as team members fill out requested documents and use the visa for their entry only, according to the Iroquois Nationals’ website. But the U.S. and Canadian immigration offices still need to approve of this process to ensure the team can return home from the games.

‘I hope it doesn’t happen,’ Jamieson said. ‘But you never know.’

Stuck in limbo

The whole issue started with a lack of communication.

Ron Balls, the men’s competition committee chair for the Federation of International Lacrosse, said in an email to The Daily Orange that the Iroquois Nationals first tried to contact the British Consulate just 12 days prior to traveling to the tournament a year ago.

‘For an event of this nature and for a traveling party of this size,’ Balls added, ‘this is far too late to initiate visa approval.’

The British Consulate soon recognized issues with the Iroquois’ visas. The United Kingdom would not allow the team to travel to England for the tournament if the United States and Canada would not let them back into their home countries.

The consulate realized these problems one week before the tournament was to begin on July 15, a Thursday. The Iroquois team flew to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City on the Sunday before the first game to try to work things out with the British Consulate.

The players arrived in New York City expecting a couple days of practice before they left for England. Instead, what ensued was a lot of waiting.

‘It was a whole lot of nothing,’ Jamieson said. ‘We sat on the bus and sat at the airport every day for a couple hours. We sat in hotel rooms. There wasn’t really much to do.’

After three more days in New York City, the Nationals did catch a break. The U.S. Department of State granted one-time waivers, allowing the team’s American members to return to the United States after the tournament.

But as the Iroquois were compiled of members from the Six Nations, some of which are located in Canada, only some of its players would have been allowed to go.

Germany replaced the Nationals in the Blue Division — the tournament’s top grouping — and played in their place the next day to open the tournament. The Iroquois still had the opportunity to play in one of the lower divisions, the Plum Division, but that chance soon slipped away, too.

‘That’s when it kind of set in with a lot of guys,’ Jamieson said. ‘We could go and prove a point, or we could just back off. We were still going to go if that was the case. And finally, the next day, it just got to the point where we missed out on the Plum Division and there was no chance of playing.’

Something lost

The FIL had to make a lot of logistical changes to the World Lacrosse Championship last year with the late cancellation of the Iroquois Nationals’ plans.

Schedules had to be changed. Team arrangements had to be altered. But Balls, the men’s competition committee chair, noted another aspect missing along with the Iroquois.

‘The Iroquois Nationals, as founders of the game and with the history, always attract the most media attention and generate ticket sales,’ Balls said. ‘This was lost.’

None of the other national teams have a link to ‘The Story of Lacrosse’ on their website. The Iroquois do, showing how the game came into existence and thanking the creator for allowing them to enjoy the sport.

For them, lacrosse is played to heal the sick. It is also played to bring together a community.

And for Jeremy Thompson, an SU midfielder and member of the Iroquois team from last year, that is exactly what lacrosse does on the world level.

‘That’s the same idea when we go outside and go to a tournament or something like that,’ he said. ‘The world games, it’s the idea of bringing together and sharing, exchanging gifts, meeting new people.’

Thompson started playing with the Nationals in 2003 as a member of their Under-19 team. He remembers a trip to Maryland where kids swarmed him with questions about the ponytail that grows from his otherwise nearly shaved head, his stick skills and the background of the sport.

Jamieson played in the 2006 World Lacrosse Championship with the Iroquois team. He echoed Thompson’s statements, adding that as important as lacrosse is to the Nationals, their presence at the game means just as much to the other teams.

‘We enjoy going to the Worlds and showing the world what the creator gave us that we shared with them,’ Jamieson said. ‘We are the originators of the game, so it’s important to go and share our knowledge.

‘I think (the Worlds) are really important to the Iroquois Nationals, but I think it’s equally as important to other places who are excited we’re going to be there.’

Prague and beyond

There has been a lot of change concerning lacrosse and the Iroquois Nationals since last summer.

The FIL implemented a series of fines for teams that don’t show up for events or pull out on short notice. If a team withdraws 60 to 31 days before, the fine is $5,000. Thirty days before and the fine increases to $10,000. A team that doesn’t arrive has to pay $20,000.

The World Indoor Lacrosse Championship starts in 18 days. The Czechs announced they will accept the Haudenosaunee passports a month ago, pending the completion of paperwork and the United States and Canada approving the process.

Last year, Jamieson was one of the players that stayed positive, telling his teammates they would be on the plane to England the next day each time they left the airport. This year, he is a little more hesitant.

‘I know that now that it happened, our organizers are definitely working a lot more toward making sure it doesn’t happen again,’ he said. ‘But at the same time, in the back of your head, it is kind of stuck there now.’

For Thompson, those memories from last summer are stored away. He said he can only look forward now, as there is nothing that can be done about last year’s issues.

He recognizes the Czech’s decision as the possible first step toward actually reaching the world championships. It’s a first step that allowed one word to keep echoing from Thompson’s mouth: hope.

‘Hopefully, this is a step in the door,’ he said. ‘Hopefully, it just keeps building from there. Hopefully, they recognize us as who we are. We can only go from there and hope for the best.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on May 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm