A’s ramping up for Minto Cup
Host team at 2020 Canadian Jr. A men’s indoor lacrosse championships doesn’t intend to enter finals through ‘back door’
The St. Catharines Jr. A Athletics will once again by the happiest of hosts should history repeat itself when the Minto Cup championships are played in St. Catharines in August.
This marks the fourth time the Athletics will compete as the host team at the Canadian Jr. A men’s indoor lacrosse championships. In each of the first three occasions, they were the last team standing when the time came to raise the Minto Cup.
The Athletics have won the Minto Cup six times. In addition to three championships won on their home floor — 1947, Haig Bowl; 1991, Garden City Arena; 2001, Jack Gatecliff Arena — they also took the title in 1990, when the national finals were played in Vancouver and Winnipeg, 1990, New Westminster, B.C., as well as 2003, Waterloo, Ont.
Since 1960, the Minto Cup has been contested by the Jr. A men’s champions of three provinces in which Canada’s national summer game thrives: Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.
The three leagues take turns hosting the nationals, and it was the Ontario Junior A Council’s turn to host the three-league championship this year after the Minto Cup was held in Victoria, B.C., last year and in Calgary in 2018.
The Brampton Excelsiors, who last hosted nationals in 2017, and the Mimico Mountaineers also submitted bids but St. Catharines won out when the council made its selection Sunday.
An elated Paul Coates, Athletics team president, welcomed the news as “super exciting” for the community as a whole, not just for the organization.
“The A’s are a community organization. We don’t have an individual owner, so the fact we can get everybody in the community involved, led by our board, is simply fantastic,” Coates said.
“The legacy we hope to be able to leave once this event is over is an incredible opportunity, and we can’t be more excited.
“Economically for the city, it’s going to be great. The number of people the Minto Cup will attract will be significant.”
As host team, the Athletics automatically qualify for the Minto Cup championships, regardless of how they fare in regular- and post-season play. However, anything short of entering nationals as the Ontario champion would be a disappointment for St. Catharines.
“It is a Memorial Cup format, so the host team automatically gets in,” Coates said, “but our goal, right from the outset, is to win the province and, hopefully, the team that we beat at provincials is the other team from Ontario that will be in the Minto Cup.”
He reiterated the Athletics — who last season were eliminated by the Burlington Chiefs in the semifinal round of the provincial playoffs — are “not at all” interested in getting to nationals through the “back door.”
“We we have a really good team. There’s every reason we can win the province,” the team president said. “We will ramp this team up so it’s ready to go.”
The Athletics lost 12 players to graduation in the age-restricted 21
“We’re going to be exceptionally strong. Basically, our entire offence has returned, and we’ve already started to rebuild our back end with some great trades.” PAUL COATES ST. CATHARINES JR. A ATHLETICS PRESIDENT
and-younger league, including goaltender Nick Damude, the team’s most valuable player during the regular season, and captain Latrell Harris, its top defender.
However, this won’t be a rebuilding year for the Double Blue. Steve Toll is returning as head coach as are four of the team’s top scorers from last season: Kealan Pilon, 34 goals, 47 assists; Carter Zavitz, 15 goals, 51 assists; Alex Simmons, 19 goals, 27 assists in only eight games; Brayden Mayea, 18 goals, 23 assists.
“We’re going to be exceptionally strong. Basically, our entire offence has returned, and we’ve already started to rebuild our back end with some great trades,” Coates said.
Having already been granted the Canadian under-16 men’s and women’s indoor lacrosse championships and having the Meridian Centre, an air-conditioned, licenced facility that would introduce a new turf floor that would be used in the Canada Summer Games the following year, helped tip the bid in St. Catharines’ favour
“The U16s and the Minto are really like a test event for the Canada Summer Games all working together,” Coates said. “And then to be able to roll into the Canada Summer Games was a great opportunity to utilize some of the volunteer base, and just let the city be ready for what’s going to take place the following summer.”
Two 200-foot by 85-foot turf surfaces will be part of the legacy from the 2021 Canada Summer Games.
“That’s what everybody wants. It’s no different than the National Lacrosse League,” said Coates, whose team competes on concrete in its home games.
“It’s much easier on the players for injuries. Esthetically it’s a thousand times better looking.”
The impact on the ball won’t be night-and-day for an Athletics team used to playing on concrete.
“That won’t be a problem at all,” Coates said. “It’s not a huge, thick pile. We’re not talking about AstroTurf that they play football on. It’s a much lower carpet. You can do a bounce pass, everything like that.
“It’s exactly what Six Nations has. Probably four teams in the Ontario Junior A loop already have turf.”
Despite being the host team, the Athletics won’t be getting a leg up on their three Minto Cup foes by playing games at Meridian Centre heading into nationals. All of the team’s regular- and post-season home games will be played at The Jack.
“We can’t afford to do that through the course of the year,” Coates said. “It’s not cost-effective to put turf in and take turf out when you’ve got basketball going on, when you have concerts and all those types of things.”