The Okotoks Raiders and Calgary Mountaineers have brought the Minto Cup to Alberta. Now, the challenge is to keep it there.
The two Rocky Mountain Junior A Lacrosse League rivals are co-organizers of this year’s Canada’s junior A lacrosse championship in Calgary, only the fourth time Alberta has been the site of the four-team tournament. Almost all of the other Minto Cup tournaments in the trophy’s 117-year history have been held in and won by either Ontario or British Columbia.
“The time is close. I don’t know if it’s going to be our team this year, but an Alberta champion will be coming down the pike shortly,” Raiders general manager and head coach Andrew McBride said on Thursday. “It’s an inspirational story. Great success and great moments come from great opportunity and all we’ve done is put ourselves in a position where we have an opportunity to do something special.
“I’m really looking forward to the kids embracing the opportunity to play in front of their friends and family in their hometown.”
Calgary plays the Coquitlam Adanacs, representing British Columbia, in the first game of the tournament on Thursday night and Okotoks faces Ontario’s Brampton Excelsiors in the late game.
Governor-General Lord Minto donated the trophy in 1901 to be used as Canada’s amateur lacrosse championship in a challenge format. Teams that secretly paid their players began to play for the trophy almost immediately and by 1909, only professional teams were competing. Between 1925 and 1936, no one contested the Minto Cup and in 1937 it was reintroduced as Canada’s junior A championship.
The Montreal Shamrocks won six of the first seven Minto Cups in the confusing semi-professional era, but since their previous championship in 1907, a team from either Ontario or British Columbia has won it every time. Teams from Alberta only began competing in the Minto Cup in 2003, with the province hosting it in 2005 (Edmonton), 2008 (Calgary), and 2011 (Calgary).
Joe Vetere, the Mountaineers' head coach, was born and raised in Calgary. He’s seen lacrosse grow in Alberta over the past 20 years. If either the Mountaineers or Raiders win a Minto Cup, he believes it would take the sport to even greater heights in the province.
“It’s growing and we’re getting better and everybody’s contributing,” said Vetere, who pointed to the 2016 Minto Cup as an example of Alberta’s growth as a lacrosse power. That year, the Mountaineers beat a team from both Ontario and British Columbia in the same event for the first time in history.
“We have a lot of coaches and ex-players that are coming back and helping build programs and help coach and develop the youth to the point that we’re competing on a regular basis at the national championships.”
The St. Albert Miners, from just outside Edmonton, have won two straight President’s Cups as Canada’s best senior B team. Alberta’s midget provincial team won the national championship crown last year for the first time.
McBride, who grew up in Ladner, B.C., and played his junior lacrosse for Coquitlam, is confident a team from Alberta will break the jinx. He played 12 seasons with the Calgary Roughnecks of the professional National Lacrosse League. He and Vetere both credit the NLL franchise – purchased by the NHL’s Calgary Flames in 2011 – with the growth of the sport in Alberta.
“The skill level has caught up. We’re as skilled as Ontario or B.C. now. The coaching’s catching up, the competition is catching up,” McBride said. “It’s just having that realization and that belief that we can win. There’s no reason that an Alberta team can’t win, it’s just a game of lacrosse. We just need to go out there and play our best game of lacrosse.”