The National Championships concluded this past weekend, after a week of exciting and action-packed lacrosse. Each province who sent a team represented their provinces very well and all teams played the game the right way. The Peewee and Midget gold medal games were between Team Ontario and Team Iroquois, and both games were wild finals, with the Midget game being decided in overtime.
There was a crew of 12 officials who worked this year’s tournament. There were 6 from Ontario, 2 from B.C., 2 from Alberta and 1 each from Quebec and Nova Scotia. I was representing Ontario and ended up working the Peewee Gold medal game between Ontario and the Iroquois. It was a close game until the end when Ontario pulled away with a few late goals to make the score 9-2. It was a packed arena of about two thousand people and the medal games were televised on national TV.
As officials we each worked 3-5 games per day throughout the entire week. There is a lot of body maintenance that is required to be able to work that many games for so many days in a row. There were a couple people who had minor injuries but nothing major. It was a great experience to ref with people from other provinces just to see how their style of game and approach is different from referees in Ontario.
Final 6 is this coming weekend in Oakville, ON, which is the top six teams in Peewee, Bantam and Midget from across Ontario. This is one final tournament to determine a Provincial `A` champion. There is a 12 man crew officiating this tournament, with 4 being cut after the first day due to a reduced number of games. I have been selected to be on this crew and am looking forward to a great weekend of championship lacrosse.
