IL Indoor

Ontario Junior A, Road to the Minto Cup

Road to the Minto Cup: Whitby Warriors take first step with 21-5 thrashing of Toronto Beaches in season opener

Chad Tutton scoring one of his seven goals last night in Whitby's 21-5 win over Toronto. (Photo: Tim Prothero)

The Whitby Warriors know they’ll be playing in the Minto Cup this August 18-26. Last night they started trying to make sure they earn their way there. The defending Canadian champions kicked off their 2012 season with a dominating 21-5 win over the Toronto Beaches. It was the first step on their road to the Minto Cup, which they will host at the Iroquois Park Sports Centre. While they have a guaranteed spot, Assistant Coach Steve Toll said before the game, “We don’t want to back into the Cup. We want to go in knowing we belong there.” IL Indoor will follow the Warriors, along with the leading contenders to join them in August, closely as they traverse the Road to the Minto Cup. READ MORE »

National Lacrosse League, Ontario Junior B, Road to the Minto Cup

Edmonton Rush trio like their old team, but still want to beat them, plus the links

Zack Greer looks back on his Minnesota days fondly, but right now he wants nothing more than to beat the Swarm this weekend.

Whichever teams wins the West Division final this Saturday will play in its first Champions Cup. Three Edmonton Rush forwards will be hoping it’s their new team and not their old team that plays for a Nati0nal Lacrosse League title. Ryan Ward, Zack Greer and Aaron Wilson spent eight years combined with the Minnesota Swarm before being acquired by the Rush. Now they head back to their old stomping grounds. It won’t be a long trip for Ward, who still lives in Minneapolis. ”They’re on a hot streak and a very good team, but I like the matchup,” he said. “I’m excited and Saturday night it’s going to be rocking. And neither club has made it to the championship game so there’s a lot at stake for both franchises to win this game. Both teams are going to be really hungry.” READ MORE »

IL Indoor, Ontario Junior A, Road to the Minto Cup

Whitby eager to defend Minto Cup title

Reigning Minto Cup champion Whitby will have the chance to defend its title at home this summer. (Photo: Dave Fryer)

The Whitby Warriors are in an enviable position heading into the 2012 season. If they’re able to get back into position to defend their Minto Cup championship, they’ll be doing it on their home floor as host of the annual tournament. The first problem, at least right now, is that coach Derek Keenan won’t know the full potential of his team for another few weeks because so many players are away at school. And the problem with that problem is that the regular season starts on May 15. But that’s the way it goes for many Junior A teams and the Warriors, who opened last season with a 2-4 record, then turned it around once everyone arrived and finished the regular season on a 14-2 run en route to winning the Cup. So that keeps Keenan optimistic, along with his squad’s Junior B affiliation with Clarington, a program stocked with young talent. “So it’s kind of, show me, show us and prove that you belong and you’ll have an opportunity perhaps to win a Founders and a Minto Cup, which is a rare feat,” Keenan told DurhamRegion.com.

IL Indoor, National Lacrosse League, Road to the Mann Cup, Road to the Minto Cup, WLA

Dirty Dozen: Tavares may never be caught; Rush score big for 2012 entry draft; and welcome back to lacrosse for Randy Staats

Buffalo veteran forward John Tavares keeps piling up the points. Will anyone ever catch him? (Photo: Ward Laforme Jr.)

The National Lacrosse League’s single-season points record of 115, set by John Tavares in 2001, may fall this weekend. John Grant Jr., with 110 points this season, has 1 more game to try to eclipse that record and given that he’s averaging 8.5 points a game, odds are in his favor. But the odds don’t take into consideration the intangibles that can knock that pursuit off the tracks, so we can’t exactly ink Junior in as the new scoring champ just yet. But what we can do is take a closer look at another NLL record held by JT, one that he continues to extend: career points in the NLL. For the sake of argument, if the career of Tavares were to never see another game, who are the biggest threats to eclipse JT’s 1,622 career points, and if there are any threats, how long will it take them to catch Tavares? READ MORE »

Ontario Junior A, Road to the Minto Cup

Junior Lakers add goalie from St. Catharines

Connor Danko.

The Peterborough Lakers hope they’ve addressed the most glaring gap in their roster left by graduation from the OLA Junior A club. With star stopper Tye Belanger now a member of the Colorado Mammoth, the Lakers have acquired Connor Danko from the St. Catharines Athletics in exchange for undisclosed draft picks. Danko played in 11 games for the Athletics last summer, posting a 4-3-1 record, .811 save percentage and 8.20 goals against average. Danko was at Lakers practice last night and is preparing to move to Peterborough for the season.

In 2011, the Lakers lost in the OLA semi-finals, dropping the seventh game of the series in overtime to Orangeville. They have their entire offensive group returning along with most of their defensive unit, minus Eric Bissell and Pete Rennie. Both were selected by the Toronto Rock in the NLL Entry Draft.

IL Indoor, Ontario Junior A, Road to the Minto Cup

Randy Staats returns action for Six Nations

Randy Staats is back in action for Six Nations after missing the last 2 summers with a knee injury. (Photo: Ward Laforme Jr.)

Randy Staats, who has not played indoor lacrosse since the summer of 2009 after undergoing  knee surgery for a torn ACL that’s kept him out of action the last 2 summers, made his return to the Six Nations lineup. The forward scored 3 goals for the Arrows in a 17-6 preseason victory over Mississauga over the weekend. Staats, one of the game’s top offensive forces, was a 2008 finalist for Junior A Rookie of the Year and earned an honorable mention nod for ILIndoor’s Player of the Year honors in 2009. He won the Dennis McIntosh Memorial Award in 2009 as the OLA Junior A MVP after scoring 95 points (39 goals, 56 assists in 21 games). This spring, he’s an attackman for Onondaga Community College and is second on the team with 38 goals for the 11-0 Lazers. The Arrows, OLA semifinalists last summer, open their regular season on Sunday, May 13 against Peterborough.

Grassroots, National Lacrosse League, Ontario Junior A, Ontario Junior B, Road to the Founders, Road to the Minto Cup, Road to the Presidents Cup

Rookie goalie filling in well for injured starter in Calgary, plus the links

Frankie Scigliano defends his net against Jeff Cornwall and the Rush. (Photo: Amber Bracken)

Frankie Scigliano has stepped up big with Mike Poulin missing the last two games for Calgary, helping the Roughnecks clinch the West Division title and home floor throughout the playoffs. He looms large in Calgary’s future. He’ll cast a long shadow for whoever replaces him with his junior team. The immensely talented goalie is….okay, you get the picture. Scigliano’s a big guy. At 6′4″, 290 pounds, he is well suited to blocking the lacrosse net. And blocking is his approach to his position. “Being a bigger guy they like to try to get you moving and my feet have to be pretty quick,” he said. “I’m a blocker, though. I try to play the angles and if the guy is going to beat me, he has to beat me,” Scigliano told the Calgary Herald.

The numbers show that they’re not beating him too often. After making his first two starts for Calgary (starter Mike Poulin is out with an ankle injury), Scigliano has as many wins this season as Anthony Cosmo (2). He also sports a stellar .797 save percentage after allowing just six goals on 44 shots in last night’s 9-6 Roughnecks win over Edmonton. READ MORE »

IL Indoor, National Lacrosse League, Road to the Minto Cup, WLA

Swarm foster a family feeling, plus the links

Ryan Benesch, right, says chemistry has a lot to do with the success of the Swarm this season. (Photo: Alex Carroll)

If you’re wondering how the Minnesota Swarm, a team with so much youth, has bonded and built its winning chemistry so early on in the process, consider this: Nine Swarm members living in 3 apartment units. Yeah, that’ll do it. “We’re with each other all day almost every day. We’ve learned a lot about each other,” veteran forward Ryan Benesch tells Fox Sports North. “We know what makes each other happy, what makes each other mad. It’s good. We have fun.” Of course it’s more fun when you’re winning and the Swarm are doing that this season despite preseason prognosticators not giving the young squad too much of a chance. Proving people like that wrong is a great motivator as well but no matter how it’s getting done, it’s getting done and the Swarm are having a ton of fun doing it. READ MORE »

B.C. Junior A, Road to the Minto Cup

Wilfong to coach Jr. A Langley Thunder

Dave Wilfong

Chris Levis informed the Junior A Langley Thunder that he will not be able to coach the team in 2012 because he wants to play full-time with the Victoria Shamrocks of WLA. So Thunder general manager Brock Rose made a list of the candidates to replace Levis and to his delight, and relief, he didn’t have to look very far. Dave Wilfong, a 2011 inductee into the OLA Lacrosse Hall of Fame and former Mann Cup winner with New Westminster, will take over as bench boss for the Thunder after coaching the Intermediate A team last summer. “We’re very fortunate,” Rose told ILIndoor.com. “Dave’s record speaks for itself.” READ MORE »

Ontario Junior A, Road to the Minto Cup

St. Catharines A’s announce new coaching staff in Mike Lines, Darris Kilgour

The St. Catharines Junior A Athletics are making a move in the coaching department, announcing today that Mike Lines and Darris Kilgour will co-coach the team in 2012. It’s a move that brings a pair of National Lacrosse League coaches to the bench for the A’s as Lines runs the Minnesota Swarm bench and Kilgour the bench in Buffalo. Former A’s coach Eric Vinc will remain with the program, moving to the office of general manager. “We as an organization, are very excited to have Eric, Mike and Darris involved in the Jr A Athletics,” Athletics president Paul Coates told ILIndoor.com. “Eric has long relationship with the club, being involved in Minto Cup wins in 2001 and 2003. Mike and Darris were both members of the Minto Cup teams in the early 90’s, and have strong ties to the Athletics. This is a win-win situation for our organization, and we look forward to the upcoming season.” (Updated with story from St. Catharines Standard)