With both the British Columbia and Ontario Junior A seasons wrapping up earlier on in the week, Tuesday night in Okotoks saw the end of the Alberta Jr A season come to a close. The end was a forgone conclusion since Tuesday’s game would be the seventh game of the best-of-seven series between the Okotoks Raiders and the Calgary Mountaineers. To get to the league finals, both teams swept their first round matchup and coming into the deciding game five of six games were decided by just one goal.
On Tuesday night, even headed to the final period, both teams sat just one goal apart. However, the visiting Mountaineers exploded for five goals in six minutes on route to a 7-3 third period and a 16-11 final score. The win clinches the Alberta Jr A title for the Mountaineers as well as plane tickets to Ontario to compete for the Minto Cup. Alberta has historically been the weakest of the three provincial representatives having never brought the gold home, and it’s been a while since a team other than the Raiders has represented them. Will this season be the difference? It’s unlikely given the heavy hitters coming out of Ontario and BC, but don’t underestimate the motivation a seventh game win can do for a team’s confidence.
Already on the way to the Minto is the Orangeville Northmen who lost just two playoff games while marching through the Ontario ranks. Orangeville did not face easy teams, they simply dominated their opponents. Entering the playoffs the Northmen had an 11-0 run during which they surrendered double digit goals just once. Sweeping the Burlington Chiefs in round one was no surprise, but knocking off the defending champions in five games was. The momentum of that win propelled to an even bigger shock when they dominated the Six Nations Arrows, also in five games to book their Minto Cup ticket. After their unrivalled playoff run, the Orangeville Northmen have to be considered favourites for their third Minto Cup in five years.
Since the turn of the century, only two non-Ontario teams have won the Minto Cup – the Burnaby Lakers (BCJALL; 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2005) and the Coquitlam Adanacs (BCJALL; 2010). The Adanacs won the regular season title while posting a staggering +126 goal differential and kept up their dominance by dropping just one playoff game (a 10-8 loss to the Delta Islanders in the BC finals) again posting a league high +34 goal differential. The Northmen and the host Whitby Warriors have spent all season beating up on each other and know what to expect, but can the Adanacs slip under the Ontario team’s radars?
The host, and defending champions, the Whitby Warriors will have been sitting on the sidelines for three weeks dissecting their playoff loss to the Northmen once the Minto Cup tournament starts on Saturday. During their time off, they’ve also been hit by controversy in recent days. The Warriors did not play up to their potential in the OLA semi-finals, so the big question is, will this recent off-floor distraction also affect the team? Despite dropping the opening game of that series by six, the Warriors never lost another game by more than two goals in the series. However, throughout the regular season the destroyed virtually everyone they faced finishing with a 17-3 record, and a goal differential of +115. Which team will show up for the Minto: the regular season version or the playoff version?
To many who watched Ontario lacrosse it looked like the Orangeville Northmen would run away with the tournament while those from the West coast said the same of the Coquitlam Adanacs. Don’t count out the Whitby Warriors figuring out their playoff struggles, or the Calgary Mountaineers making a good showing. The entire tournament is setting up to be a hard fought, week long battle for Jr A supremacy. Don’t miss it!
