By Brandon Sanderson
So, where to start when talking about the box lacrosse season in Southern Ontario for the summer of ’08? First and foremost, I guess it would be the appropriate time to introduce ourselves as your informal curators (orators?) to the happenings of the lacrosse life being lived north of the U.S. border. Better known for our lacrosse lifestyle company, Lax Life, we will hereby be keeping you up to date in either weekly or bi-weekly blogs, giving you an exclusive feel of what is really going in LAX, both on and off the floor.
This past weekend, was the epitome of a “Lax Life” weekend from our own subjective experience. It started with a 7-4 home victory by the team we play for, the Senior B Owen Sound Woodsmen, over the undefeated and highly touted Wellington Aces; two very probable Ontario representatives at this year’s Canadian national tournament, the President’s Cup.
This particular game was a defensive battle (which is often the case on the small 4×4 net used in this league), highlighted by many up-and-comers, and also established NLL players such as: Chad Culp, Bryan Kazarian and Mike Mcleod, to name a few for the home squad, and cousins Jamie Rooney and Rob Marshall for the opposition.
With the Mann Cup being held in Ontario this summer, both the Senior A and B leagues have a lot of depth and NLL talent. Senior B is more of a small-town stage, marked by household names of guys who grew up in and around these respective organizations. Senior A (a.k.a. MSL), however, is probably the greatest test of box lacrosse skill and savvy in our opinion, with its storied tradition, grueling best-of-seven series playoff, also featuring a large majority of the world’s best box lacrosse players.
This year there are two teams that most have locked in as shoe-in favourites, that being the Peterborough Lakers and the Brampton Excelsiors. Brampton has added Colin Doyle and Dan Dawson to an already star-studded lineup, and currently sits atop the league with a 3-0 record, while the lads from the ’Boro are off to a weak start at 1-2. Don’t be fooled by the abysmal start of the Lakers though; they have been missing some very significant players out of their lineup to say the least: Junior, Dan Carey, Kelusky and little Evy (by the way Evy, you missed a “gonger” this weekend in The Ville), to name a few.
This is common practice in the senior loop of the OLA, as many guys take their time coming back from their NLL teams, which also serves to allow for some of the younger guys to show their stuff.
Nonetheless, if Patty O’Toole is retired from summer ball, which he is rumoured to be, this opens up a lot of questions as to the depth of P’Boro between the pipes. Compile that with trade rumours of Seany Evans going to Six Nations, and we are going to come out and make the prediction that Brampton wins the East and takes it all this year (no disrespect to the West, a.k.a. the BCLA).
Although, on Saturday, at the First Annual Lax Life Summer Kick-off, “Shooter” (Josh Sanderson), reminded us differently, that it is going to be a battle and that “there is still a lot of hard work ahead,” for the boys in B-town.
Six Nations has also recently acquired American phenom Casey Powell, which is certainly a good thing for box lacrosse, in that not only have we recruited one of the top players in the world to come north, we will have in all likelihood attracted more of an American following to box lacrosse, based on his reverence in the States. We have this Six Nations team slated in somewhere around the middle of the pack, but who knows, it all depends on who all gets their four games in (which is the minimum to be eligible for the playoffs).
Kitchener managed to pull off a 7-5 upset of the defending Mann Cup champion Lakers on the weekend, which is always a good feat regardless how many guys are out of their lineup. Look for our boy “Benny” (Ryan Benesch) and the Kitch boys to be around the middle of the standings as well.
Akwasasne (a.k.a. St. Regis) will also be in this group in the middle of the pack, but with the recent acquisitions of Athan Iannucci and Mark Steenhuis, combined with the prowess of JT (John Tavares), these guys should be able to upset any team that doesn’t come ready to play. Once again, a lack of depth has us suspect in calling them legitimate contenders.
We have the Brooklin Redmen and Barrie Lakeshores rounding out the basement; sorry guys, but we know that Lindsay Sanderson and Wayne Colley will be doing a good job grooming these rosters that are made up mostly of players under the age of 25. The Redmen still have Shawn Williams leading the troops, but have lost a lot of their players to the MLL, and Barrie will be in a rebuilding process after recently trading away Steenhuis, and losing Luke Wiles to the BCLA.
The last day of our Lax Life weekend found us at the old “Bunny Barn,” The Tony Rose Arena, at 40 Fead St. in Orangeville, Ontario. Here we watched, along with a packed house, the Jr. A Northmen defeat the Kitchener-Waterloo Braves 8-5. Matt Sawyer has the boys off to another great start at 6-0 and it’s looking like it might be another run between them and the 8-0 Six Nations Arrows, for the coveted Minto Cup. Northmen tough guy and all-around baller Andrew Suitor left the game with what might be a broken ankle, which must make the rest of the league drop their shoulders a little bit. It looks like the belt will have to collect some dust in his absence…
Look out for the Lax Life documentary on the summer box lacrosse season in ‘08 which commenced on Saturday, available next fall. The instructional video will be finished by the end of next week and will be available at our website www.thelaxlife.ca this coming month.
See you at the rinks.
