HERMISTON — Hermiston motels, restaurants, service stations and retail businesses will be busier than usual April 25-27, when when hundreds of visitors come to town for the Pacific Northwest Collegiate Lacrosse League men’s tournament taking place at Kennison Field.

Eight teams from Oregon, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia will be taking part in the three-day event.

Motels in Hermiston are booked solid for this weekend with potentially up to 800 to 1,000 visitors booking rooms for Friday and Saturday.

Jacob Arnold, coach of the Hermiston High School lacrosse team, said Kennison Field became sort of a last-minute choice for the tournament.

“Tucker Sargent, the coach at Montana, called a few weeks ago and said the original venue had fallen through,” Arnold said. “They were looking for a centrally located venue and asked if Kennison Field was available.”

Arnold turned to Hermiston High School Athletic Director Larry Usher for help.

“I called Larry and he said that weekend would work,” Arnold said.

Once the field was secured for the tournament, motels began getting calls for room bookings for this coming weekend.

Cari Shafer, area general manager for Oxford Suites, said all 129 rooms at the Hermiston motel are booked. Shafer said it’s unusual for the motel to be fully booked for a weekend in Hermiston.

“We are busier than usual for a weekend in Hermiston in April,” Shafer said. “Hermiston tends to be busier during the week rather than the weekends due to business travel, so it’s really nice to have an event like this that happens during the weekend.”

Alyshia Bowe, front desk associate for Best Western in Hermiston, said the weekend tournament resulted in a rush of reservations.

“We’re booked solid for this weekend,” Bowe said. She said the motel is typically fully booked about 35 percent of weekends during the year. She said it gets particularly busy during big events.

“We get filled up whenever there is a lot of school activities and tournaments going on,” Bowe said. “We get a lot of bookings then.”

Those competing in the tournament are the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Boise State University and Simon Fraser University from British Columbia, all in the league’s first division. Second division teams competing are Northwest Nazarene University from Idaho, the College of Idaho, Western Oregon University and the University of Montana.

Arnold said each team will average around 38 players with anywhere from four to six coaches per team. Those 350 players and coaches will likely have family members traveling to Hermiston for the event, as well.

Hermiston Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Val Hoxie said local businesses will benefit from the influx of visitors to Hermiston.

“The chamber is excited about the anticipated turnout for this weekend’s lacrosse tournament,” Hoxie said. “This is a wonderful opportunity for our local businesses, and we are thrilled about the positive economic effects weekends like this can bring to our community. Our mission at the Chamber is to foster an environment where both current and future businesses can flourish, especially during events like this one. We recognize tourism revenue plays a significant role in supporting our local businesses.”

Hermiston Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan said Hermiston is able to host events like the college lacrosse tournament because of the quality of Kennison Field and the work and thought that went into its renovation.

“I’m old enough to remember when the school district was rebuilding Kennison Field in 2012-13, and the Sports Boosters, in their foresight, decided to fundraise an additional $700,000 in donations in order to make the facility a top-notch multi-sport venue capable of hosting state tournaments,” Morgan said.

Morgan also pointed to a hotel task force convened by then-Mayor Dave Drotzmann to “try and leverage” the Kennison Field and the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center toward attracting additional hotel capacity to the community.

“That work ultimately yielded the 96-room downtown Holiday Inn Express,” Morgan said, “which, in my opinion, has been the single most important component in revitalizing, or at least stabilizing, the downtown area.”

Morgan said that effort helped former brick-and-mortar retail spaces transition into food service establishments.

“Having a stable and consistent flow of 100 to 200 out-of-towners per day coming to ‘live’ in the downtown has created the demand to be able to support those types of service businesses,” he said. “Bringing in additional folks from out of the region for periodic athletic events really helps add the ‘cherry on top’ to take those ancillary businesses from ‘stable’ to ‘thriving.’”

Morgan said traditional tourism will never be Hermiston’s economic strong suit.

“Business travel remains the single largest form of tourism in Hermiston, but after that, these types of sporting events which legitimately bring visitors from at least an hour away are critical to supporting the area’s hospitality ecosystem,” he said.

Sports Planning Guide, an organization that helps tournament organizers plan and put on events, says that lacrosse is the oldest team sport in North America and dates back to the 1600s.

According to SPG, lacrosse participation in the United States has increased by 218% from 2001 to 2014. Youth lacrosse participation has grown by 25% since 2012.

That’s compared to baseball’s growth rate of 2% during that same time, while football’s participation rate dropped by nearly 16%.

The NCAA reports that between 2003 and 2018, Division 1 lacrosse grew by 61 percent among men and 97 percent among women.

Games for the tournament this weekend in Hermiston begin Friday morning and wrap up Sunday afternoon. Semi-final games for the Division 2 teams will be at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Friday, April 25 with the championship game set for noon on Saturday, April 26. Semi-final games for the Division 1 teams are set for 3 and 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 26 with the championship game taking place at 1 p.m. on Sunday, April 27.

The winner of each division earns an automatic bid to the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association’s national championships in Round Rock, Texas, from May 5-10.
Arnold, who has coached lacrosse at HHS for the past 10 years, said the high school first fielded a lacrosse team in 2000. He said this weekend’s tournament will be a boon for both Hermiston and the sport.

“It’s a pretty neat opportunity for Hermiston to host this tournament and a great opportunity for the sport to be seen by more people,” Arnold said.