Thunderbirds aiming to bring National Lacrosse League title to Halifax for first time

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.

Petterson, who had nine