Robert Church vividly remembers the winning feeling he experienced in the early days of the Saskatchewan Rush, after they moved to Saskatoon in the fall of 2015.
The team won two NLL championships on the floor of SaskTel Centre and enjoyed years of playoff success. Church has waited six years to enjoy such moments again.
“You can’t take it for granted,” Church said. “I got there a lot when I was young, and it’s been six years… All I’ve wanted is to get back there and take advantage of the moment you’ve got.”
The Rush and their fans have waited 2,185 days for playoff lacrosse to return to the province. They’ll get to experience it again for the first time since 2019 on Saturday as Saskatchewan hosts the Georgia Swarm in NLL quarter-finals.
“It’s been a tough grind to get back,” said Rush captain Ryan Keenan. “When you start your career and have success right out of the gate for a number of years, it’s tough to go through that playoff drought. I think it just pushes you that much more to get back to this point.”
For three straight seasons, the Rush have finished with identical 8-10 regular season records and have been unable to generate consistently at both ends of the floor.
That changed in the 2024-25 season. The Rush never lost back-to-back games and wound up in second place in the NLL standings with a 13-5 record.
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Jimmy Quinlan, Saskatchewan co-head coach, said the team’s talent shone on the floor this season and the players belief in each other has gotten them to this point.
“The last few years, we had to learn how to win,” Quinlan said. “Now we’re kind of understanding what it takes. It doesn’t really matter too much what goes on in a game, we right now have that mentality of staying the course. It’s got us to where we are and we’re going to continue that this weekend.”
Wrapping up the regular season with back-to-back wins over the Colorado Mammoth and Ottawa Black Bears, the Rush say they’re treating Saturday’s quarter-final game at SaskTel Centre the same as any game they’ve suited up for this season.
However, the stakes will be higher considering the single-game elimination format of the NLL’s first round of playoffs.
“It’s one game,” Rush forward Austin Shanks said. “We’ve said it all year… We have to play 60 minutes and there’s no better test than [Saturday] night.”
In their lone meeting this season on March 8, the Rush rode a 45-save performance by goaltender Frank Scigliano to defeat the Swarm by a 8-7 score in Duluth, Ga.
While Saskatchewan enters playoffs with the second-best record in the NLL, Church said there’s not much separating the team and the seventh-seeded Swarm.
“I think you can throw the seeds out the window when you get into playoffs,” Church said. “All eight teams are capable of winning it, but I think the biggest thing is clinching that home game because that’s really the only one-up you got on them right now.”
Saskatchewan’s home floor advantage will be key on Saturday, as the Rush aims to ride a wave of playoff support.
Keenan hopes the team’s return to the post-season will lead to a lengthy championship run, which he got to experience as a young player in 2018.
“When we’re winning, there’s not many better atmospheres in the sport to be around,” Keenan said. “We expect it to be loud and [the fans] to be there for us.”
The Rush and Swarm face off at 7:30 p.m. The winner advances to NLL semi-finals.
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