Hulme fired up to play for Cannons
Colin Hulme is a lacrosse guy and he knew it from the first time he played in a youth league game. Lacrosse is that kind of sport; it just reaches out and grabs an athlete by the heart. Nothing else is ever as good.
A kid packed with athletic talent, Hulme tried every sport he could and turned out to be good at everything, but he showed a particular affinity for lacrosse. It was still a young sport then in Massachusetts - in fact, Hulme had to travel from his hometown of Framingham to Sudbury to find a youth league.
Hulme stood out, and by 2001, his junior year at Framingham High School, he had made such a strong impression that he was invited to the United States Under-19 camp. He went on to become a key player at Colgate.
Now the 22-year-old defenseman has played his way into a career. A second-year professional, Hulme joins the Boston Cannons in their Major League Lacrosse opener against the New Jersey Pride tonight at 7 at Harvard Stadium.
Hulme played last season with the San Francisco Dragons, flying cross-country every weekend for practice and a game in a league of part-time players. After he was named assistant lacrosse coach at Holy Cross last summer, the Dragons traded him to Boston, along with attackman Matt Alrich, in exchange for attackman David Mitchell and a fourth-round draft pick.
Hulme said he is excited to get the chance to play at home and he has proven to be an athlete who can turn chance into fortune. Each milestone in his lacrosse journey has been accomplished with a sudden sprint, much like the pattern of the game itself. Hulme never specialized in lacrosse, never played on club or select teams in high school, preferring to change his uniform with the season. It is, incidentally, the kind of athlete he looks for at Holy Cross. "We want kids who play two or three sports," he said. "Each of the sports teaches your body different things."
Hulme's versatility was cultivated in a home chockablock with athletes, including younger sister Alexandra, who played lacrosse at Bucknell. Hulme's parents both rowed at Connecticut College, and his older brother, Nathaniel, was on the varsity crew at Colby. Colin, 6 feet tall and 220 pounds, never took to rowing. "For some reason, I was always the one more into contact sports," he said.
Hulme's parents and his brother also liked to play golf, but Colin's appraisal was blunt. "I never got it," he said.
Colin Hulme liked to hit; he played on the high school varsity in football, hockey, and lacrosse. "Football games are fun," he said. "But I hated practice. It's so demanding on your body. I don't miss the way your body feels the day after a game." As for hockey, Hulme said his size gave him an advantage but he assessed his stick skills as average.
But on the lacrosse field, he was good, really good, and he loved every minute of it - games, practices, pickup. He was one of only two Massachusetts players invited to the US U19 camp the summer after his junior year, and it was there he played against a whole squad of elite players for the first time. "I thought, 'Wow, this is what it's really like.' "
The experience allowed him to pencil himself into that kind of lineup, a new possibility. After the Division 1 college scholarship he first expected didn't work out, Colgate abruptly came calling. The Raiders did not then offer scholarships, but the school in Hamilton, N.Y., turned out to be a fortuitous choice. Hulme had the chance to be a key component in Colgate's push to build its program, anchoring the defense for four years, while sparking the transition game with his open-field speed. By the time he was a junior, he had earned All-America honors. That's when MLL started to come into focus.
"This is the seventh year of Major League Lacrosse," said Cannons coach Bill Daye, "and with only 10 teams, there aren't that many spots. Primarily you see kids from the Division 1 top-tier schools like North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Johns Hopkins in the limelight. Whenever a kid can come from a school like that - and this is no disrespect to Colgate, because they've made great strides under coach [Jim] Nagle, but they're not thought of as one of the hotbeds - so it's a tribute to the coaching staff, finding a player like Colin and developing him."
In 2007, Hulme's senior year, Colgate (11-5) jumped from 35th the year before to 12th in the Division 1 power rankings, and Hulme was named Patriot League Defensive Player of the Year, while again earning Division 1 All-America honors.
When school let out, the pace only picked up. The Dragons took Hulme 16th overall in the 2007 MLL draft and the next day he was on a plane to California. The day after that, he was on the field in San Francisco's season opener, the only rookie to play that day, as he made another remarkable transition.
"That was pretty intense," he said.
He played in nine games for the Dragons but the cross-country commute started to wear him down. The new job at Holy Cross and the subsequent trade gave him another chance. While the Cannons boast two of the game's best long-stick defensemen in Ryan Curtis and Chris Passavia, Hulme's athleticism gives the team some flexibility in its defense.
"Colin not only provides depth back there, on close defense," said Daye, "he's very athletic and that allows me to use him up top as a defensive midfielder."
Hulme is happy to adapt to playing with the short stick. "You've just got to rely on your body a little more instead of stick checks," he said. "It's the way you position yourself, to angle [opponents] away, to force them away. You have to be more physical on the ball, and use your arms more.
"Playing defense can be weird; you've got to buy into it. This league is very high-powered on offense; the guys are just unbelievable. So many guys score so many goals, the defense can go unnoticed. You've got to be strong mentally. But when you do make a great defensive play, the guys on the field know."
For the first time, all 12 Cannons games will be televised in New England, on a combination of networks: 
