Offensive dynamo Wesley Berg recently scored his 100th career point, showing the scoring touch that the Roughnecks expected when they drafted him.
Berg was selected by Calgary with the fourth-overall pick in the 2015 NLL Draft. The sophomore is off to a great start in 2017, having scored 43 points (16g, 23a) already. He is currently on pace for a career-high 77 points.
We spoke with Berg about his big milestone, his favourite players growing up, and more.
On his move to Calgary:
“It’s been good. It’s been a lot colder than Vancouver, but Vancouver has had a ton of snow lately, so it’s been a bit different, but it’s nice.
“It’s nice when you’re at the ‘Dome that you’re not travelling and staying at hotels still, so that’s awesome.”
On playing lacrosse year-round:
“It’s a little bit different because with the outdoor league it’s kind of a different sport, so it makes things interesting. But it’s like any professional sport, where if you’re playing football or baseball or hockey, you’re playing almost year-round anyways. It’s something to get used to, but it’s a lot of fun.”
On his favourite players to watch growing up:
“I was pretty lucky growing up in Coquitlam. When I was 8 or 9, Josh Sanderson was there, John Grant Jr., and Colin Doyle, guys that I was lucky enough to watch play down the street from where I live. I got to watch them a bit in the NLL as well. Those were my three favourite offensive guys to watch out there.”
On who he models his game after:
“I don’t think I have the same sort of stick skills as John Grant Jr., but you try to emulate anything they do and have the smarts of a guy like Josh Sanderson and the scoring ability like Colin Doyle. You try to take a few traits from those guys and you’ll be lucky.”
On his offensive success so far in the NLL:
“We’ve got a pretty strong offensive unit. The right side and the left side work really well together and obviously with Curtis Dickson taking a lot of attention away from guys and Tyler Digby setting a lot of good picks, it opens up a lot of space. I’m fortunate enough to play on a team where I get a lot of opportunities and chances to score goals. When you move the ball a lot of guys score goals and you get assists from them, so that’s kind of how it’s been.”
On shooting less, but having a higher shooting percentage:
“It could be that, but sometimes those statistics are misleading because you’re taking shots to get a reset or you’re taking shots at the end of the clock just to see what happens. That can mess your shooting percentage up or how many shots you take. I don’t feel like I’ve been shooting less at all, in terms of getting scoring chances. It might just be a statistical thing.”
On who is the hardest defender to go against:
“It’d be hard to pin-point a certain guy, but we play Saskatoon four times a year, or six with playoffs, and that backside with (Kyle) Rubisch, (Chris) Corbeil and a couple bigger guys, it’s always a challenge for us.”
On playing other sports as a kid:
“I grew up playing hockey, I played a little bit of soccer, and I played a bunch of other sports at school, like track and field.”
“I was never as good at hockey as I was at lacrosse, but I always played triple A hockey and I enjoyed that. I don’t know if I would have ever made the NHL, but I had fun doing that and hockey was more of a commitment, but I always had fun.”
