Langley officials expect sellout for Stealth game

Tickets for Saturday’s National Lacrosse League championship game are “just about sold out,” an official at the Langley Events Centre said Wednesday.

Jared Harman, the facility’s director of business development, said there’s no doubt the game between the Rochester Knighthawks and the Washington Stealth will be played before a standing-room-only crowd. The Langley Sports Centre seats 5,200 and is home to the Langley Thunder of the Western Lacrosse Association.

The Stealth earned the right to host the championship by virtue of their 9-7 regular-season record — Rochester was 8-8 — but had to move the game to Langley, British Columbia, because of a scheduling conflict at Comcast Arena in Everett.

Stealth officials wanted to play the game at KeyArena in Seattle, Showare Center in Kent or the Tacoma Dome, but those three facilities were either booked or unable to accommodate lacrosse.

“After those other venues kind of became a non-starter, our next obvious choice was Langley because the NLL had played there and they had done such a great job with the NLL exhibition games in the past,” Stealth president David Takata said.

Langley is located about 80 miles north of Everett.

Harman said the goal Saturday is to make the Langley Sports Centre feel as much like Everett as possible, both for the Stealth’s fans and for the Stealth players.

“We need to do everything we can to make it feel like a Washington Stealth home game and (make sure) that they are getting everything they’ve earned,” Harman said.