NLL Insider

John Grant, Dan Dawson, Lewis Ratcliff, John Tavares, Shawn Williams, Gavin Prout, Tracy Kelusky, Scott Evans, Josh Sanderson and Pat Maddalena. These box lacrosse stars were the top 10 scorers in the NLL this past season. What do they all have in common? Six of them won a World Indoor championship for Canada in May. Three of them won a World field lacrosse championship last July for Canada. A few of them are in the MLL this summer. Yes, all of them are Canadian but that’s still not what I’m talking about. Every one of them is playing summer box lacrosse in Canada’s Senior league. We’re talking about the quest for the Mann Cup here – the ultimate amateur lacrosse trophy in Canada. Some will say that the Minto Cup – the trophy given to Canada’s best Junior lacrosse team is even harder to attain since the duration of a Junior career (5 years) is much shorter than the potential length of a Senior career – and I wouldn’t argue with them. But, in a nutshell, the Canadian Senior league features most of the best indoor lacrosse players in the world (current NLL stars), while the Junior league features many future NLL stars as well as many NCAA stars (Zack Greer, Garrett Billings).

This year the Mann Cup championship will be hosted by the British Columbia Senior champs as the Ontario champion will try to become the first visiting team to win it since the Six Nations Chiefs beat the New Westminster Salmonbellies in 1995. Only BC and Ontario compete for the Mann Cup as the other Canadian provinces battle for a Senior B title. The Minto Cup will also be played in BC. The format for the Minto is different as the Ontario, BC and Alberta champs all compete along with the predetermined hosting team (New Westminster this year). At this time of year Canadian box lacrosse players are getting set for the playoff run.

I will go into a lot more details in future blogs, but here is how things are shaping up as we approach playoffs. In the Ontario Junior league, Six Nations is the favorite. With a few games left they are the only undefeated team at 14-0-1. Anything less than the Minto Cup will seem like a failure for Six Nations – especially after bolstering their squad with last year’s MVP and leading scorer Shawn Evans (Rochester Knighthawks) from Peterborough. However, the road to the Minto will be difficult with Orangeville, Peterborough and handful of competitive teams in their way. In the West you can’t bet against the perennial Champion Burnaby Lakers.

In Senior lacrosse the Ontario league is very competitive this season. Although Jamie Batley’s defending Mann Cup champions Peterborough Lakers are holding on to first place, the Barrie Lakeshores and the Brampton Excelsiors are not far behind. In fact, the real season does not start until the playoffs as many superstars (Peterborough’s John Grant, Brampton’s Brodie Merrill) are splitting their time between the Canadian League and the MLL.

Out west there is a changing of the guard. For the past ten years only Coquitlam was able to periodically interrupt Victoria’s dominance. Even with the 1-2 punch of the top two scorers in the league, Lewis Ratcliff (Calgary Roughnecks) and Dan Dawson (Arizona Sting), the Victoria Shamrocks have the second worst record at 3-7-1. Currently Craig Conn (Arizona Sting) and Athan Iannucci (Philadelphia Wings) have the New Westminster Salmonbellies in first place, but Burnaby is just behind them.

See you next week.

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