Wednesday, May 14, 2014

2014 OLA Jr A Season Preview

Do to some non-lacrosse stuff we are way behind on this but as they always say...better late than never!

Its a condensed version Season Preview

2014 might be the year where everything finally turns on its head and parity comes to the fore. Last year's Minto Champion, Whitby Warriors have lost a truckload and the Six Nations Arrows have also lost their fair share to graduation so could this leave the door open for the Bramptons of the league to sneak by?

Remember the last Excelsiors Ontario Title? It was 20 years ago. With a big trade to pick up Zach Herreweyers from the Lakers, the Maroon faithful are certainly hoping for an end to the drought.

Will they do it? We do not know. But LLB expects this to be a crazy and wide open year with at least five contenders....each with a glaring question mark to still answer.

Predicted Order of Finish
1- Six Nations
2- Brampton
3- Whitby
4- Peterborough
5- Burlington
6- Barrie
7- Orangeville
8- Beaches
9- KW
10- St. Catharines
11- Mississauga

1- Six Nations
Regular season Johnny P is great. Playoff Powless needs to seize control of a series and never let go.
New Staats not yet as good as the old Staats.
Alton has good stats but can he handle full time role?

2- Brampton
Zach Herreweyers was solid pickup to help their O but did he peak in 2012 or was he poorly utilized by Peterborough last year?
Can a team that takes a lot of penalties be a true title contender now?
An older team making the push in a wide open league and it will likely come down to untested goalie, Kevin Flanigan.

3- Whitby
Lost a lot to graduation but smartly have enough developed that should help them pull out some close games.
Reilly O'Connor still top 2 player in Jr A...which helps a lot.
Their Minto experience will bode well come playoff time.

4- Peterborough
Maybe we are drinking the Kool-Aid again but a team this talented eventually has to figure it out....right?
No matter where they finish (and they have widest possible range of expectations) they are always a tough team to beat in playoffs.
They have the talent but do they have discipline and goaltending to do it?

5- Burlington
Buchan in net is ready to step up as best goalie in the league so they will be tough to score on.
Loss of Corbett and Ruest srings...they need another player to go parabolic in scoring like Dan Lomas did last year.....those do not happen too often.
Do not think they will repeat last years great regular season record but also believe they are now better fit for playoff noise

6- Barrie
The best of the rest. Lots of talent up front but still shakey enough at back and in net.

7- Orangeville
No Sawyer for first time in years on the bench
Will be their usual gritty Northmen but this is a learning year for their youthful roster

8- Beaches
Flipped a coin between Beach boys and KW and may regret it with KW having better backend

9- KW
Lots of Cloutier and Jackson but Orleman in net will be key to playoff question.

10- St. Catharines
Will be better but still far from playoff contention

11- Mississauga
Rumours of two attempts to transfer the team being shot down at league meetings and departure of GM means another year of losses for the Tomahawks.

Playoffs
Watch for Nations, Brampton to be the favourites to make final. Both have enough question marks that Whitby, Burlington and Peterborough all have great chances to break through. We will go with Brampton as our preseason choice.









Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Lacrosse: Canada's First Game

We have been bantering around some random thoughts on the topic of improving Lacrosse for the better. Obviously everyone has their own "Big picture" ideas and realistically, very few of them will happen because this sport changes at a sub-glacial pace.

There has been an interesting discussion recently on the Unofficial OLA Fan Forum (the wild, wild west of Lacrosse fandom) about promoting the sport beyond the traditional communities (mostly caucasian and natives) in Ontario. You can follow everything here if you want to catch up to speed:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/333879/message/1394475214/Lacrosse+operators+.+You+need+to+see+this%21

Ron Messer is right. We don't do a bad job of marketing to new immigrant communities...we don't do the job AT ALL. The core GTA is one huge market in Canada and recent statistics show that more and more immigrants are settling in this area and yet we have failed to even attempt to bring them out to Lacrosse. It's not a failure of promotion, it is that we have not even tried...which is even worse.

I have a good friend who was born in Hong Kong but has lived in Canada since he was a toddler. I worked him hard to come watch a game. It took a few years but he finally relented and showed up to a Junior B game I was coaching. He even brought his oldest son. They both enjoyed the game and could see the merits of playing or being a fan. His son has not played and they have not been to a game since then but no sport is for "every person". The real key is what he said to me a few weeks after. When I asked what he thought he mentioned "All I saw were white people and no other races. The game is great but when you are new to a country you search out for some comfort in seeing people "like" you."

Here we are sitting with a marketing plan to a dwindling proportion of the populace (Toronto now over 50% non-caucasian). It is nice to have pie but over time our slice of the pie gets smaller and smaller all because we CHOOSE to limit our market. We CHOOSE to limit our growth. Maybe it is time we CHOOSE to make a change and be encouraging of participation from new Canadians to the greatest game of Canada.

So join us in this new movement. We've coined a new marketing slogan for the game "Lacrosse: Canada's First Game" to replace "The Fastest Game on Two Feet" which has been used for over 30 years now. If you speak another language, translate the new slogan and post it in the comments below or tweet it out with the hashtag #newlaxslogan. We will RT everyone who uses it.

The onus for promoting the game does not fall on the governing body, it falls on everyone who participates in the game. The goal is to have 3% of registrations from visible minorities by 2020. A few hundred more players means a few thousand more fans of the game.