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Clarke Petterson flapped his arms like wings to celebrate after netting the final goal in a win that sent the Halifax Thunderbirds soaring into the National Lacrosse League finals.
With their best-of-three championship series against the Toronto Rock getting underway this week, the Thunderbirds are hoping Petterson repeats the newly hatched celebration two more times.
“Casey Wilson and I were rooming in the hotel,” Petterson said, reflecting on how he and his teammate came up with the idea before the decisive third game of their semifinal series against the Georgia Storm on May 10.
“We were talking about ‘what are we going to do to get the crowd into it?’ And he brought up the idea of doing the bird celebration. So I was like, ‘OK, whoever ends the game or puts the game out of reach, let’s bring that one out.’”
The Thunderbirds are aiming to bring the NLL Cup to Nova Scotia for the first time since the franchise relocated to Halifax from Rochester, N.Y., in 2019.
Petterson, who was Halifax’s first draft pick that year, said a title would culminate what the Thunderbirds started when they moved to Nova Scotia.
The Rock host the series opener tonight, with the teams coming back to Halifax for Game 2 on Sunday at Scotiabank Centre. Game 3, if necessary, goes May 23 in Toronto.
The Thunderbirds got off to a sluggish start to the season, winning only three of their first 10 outings, and needed to win their final regular-season game to finish 8-10 and secure the league’s last playoff berth.
But they stunned the top-seeded Vancouver Warriors in their single-game quarterfinal matchup, rallying from a 7-1 deficit for a 10-7 victory on the road, and bounced the fourth-ranked Swarm in the semifinal bracket.
‘Playing for our playoff lives’
Petterson, who had nine points in the series-clinching 15-11 victory over Georgia, said he never thought of the Thunderbirds as underdogs, citing injuries as a factor in their slow start. He credits the momentum they built later in the season for getting the team set for the playoffs.
“We’re playing for our playoff lives here,” he said. “Even in the middle of the regular season, we were playing for our playoff lives. So that started a long time ago.”
Mike Accursi, head coach of the Thunderbirds, said the team entered the season with championship hopes but struggled to meet their expectations before turning things around down the stretch.
He said the team showed its resilience in the semifinals against Georgia by refocusing for the do-or-die third game rather than dwelling on a 21-9 blowout loss to the Swarm in Game 2.
“No one in this room has ever quit on each other,” Accursi said ahead of their showdown with Toronto. “We’re not gonna start now.”
The sixth-seeded Rock, who finished 11-7 in the regular season, orchestrated their own playoff upset. They knocked off the No. 3 Saskatchewan Rush in the quarterfinals before disposing of the No. 7 San Diego Seals in the semifinals.
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